Apple's new "green" notebook ad

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple, Macbook Pro, MacBookApple aired a new television ad here in the US earlier tonight. It touts the MacBook's low power consumption, recyclable enclosure and lack of some of the toxins present in other computers.Activist group Greenpeace has been pressuring Apple to adopt more environmentally-friendly production methods and materials over the last couple of years, and last month responded favorably to Apple's efforts to go green. Additionally, Apple has...

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple, Macbook Pro, MacBookApple aired a new television ad here in the US earlier tonight. It touts the MacBook's low power consumption, recyclable enclosure and lack of some of the toxins present in other computers.Activist group Greenpeace has been pressuring Apple to adopt more environmentally-friendly production methods and materials over the last couple of years, and last month responded favorably to Apple's efforts to go green. Additionally, Apple has posted a page to their website describing not only their efforts toward environmental responsibility with the MacBook, but their overall efforts as a company. At the risk of sounding like a tree-hugging hippie, let me say, well done Apple!TUAWApple's new "green" notebook ad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • Dell whines about Apple's 'green' claims to Better Business Bureau

    Filed under: Macbook Pro, MacBookIn a display of environmental posturing on both sides, Dell lodged a complaint with the advertising industry's self-governing oversight board: The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (NAD). The claim? When Apple says it has the "world's greenest family of notebooks," family could be taken to mean all models of MacBook past and present -- including models that weren't built with the environment in mind. "Common industry usage of 'family' refers to a particular model or group of models, and not the entire notebook line," argued Dell, according to a post on the New York Times' "Green Inc." blog. Dell also complained about Apple's use of gold EPEAT ratings -- an award that many of Apple's competitors have also earned. Standing behind their claim, Apple effectively said, "that's right, deal with it": Family, in the context of the ad "refers to its whole line of notebooks, taken in toto, [and] not a particular model or group." The NAD said there was no problem with Apple communicating its EPEAT ratings to consumers, and commended the company for its commitment to creating an entire line of notebooks that meet the highest EPEAT ratings, according to the Wall Street Journal. Even so, the NAD suggested that consumers could believe that "family" means a line of products (and not all the products) that a company makes. They recommended that Apple use direct comparisons between MacBooks and competitor notebooks to clarify their claims of environmental friendliness. They also recommended that Apple avoid the use of world's greenest "given the potential for overstatement." Apple? Overstatement? That's unpossible. Apple was happy with the conclusion, with PR spokesman Steve Dowling telling the New York Times that the NAD had confirmed that MacBooks are indeed the world's greenest notebooks when compared to other manufacturers' entire product lines. It appears that Apple has taken to using the word "lineup" instead of "family" on its website. Dell issued a statement, saying they "commend the NAD for their part in helping ensure companies represent their products' environmental attributes accurately." Dell has previously lodged advertising complaints against Lenovo, and last year the company had to stop using the slogan "the world's most secure notebooks."TUAWDell whines about Apple's 'green' claims to Better Business Bureau originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • Apple's Mac mini tops chart of 'green' computers

    Filed under: Hardware, Odds and ends, iMac, Mac mini, MacBook AirThe sust-it website, which provides rankings of energy usage and annual energy cost for thousands of appliances, home entertainment devices, and computers, has announced that Apple's Mac mini fills the top four spots for the most efficient desktop computer in their latest listing. The 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Mac mini is at the top of the chart, sipping just .94W when turned off (power still goes to circuits monitoring the power status of the computer), 1.71W when in sleep mode, and just 12.6W when turned on but in an idle mode. sust-it calculated the energy cost per year for the mini (without a monitor, of course) as US$5.51 when calculated with the average US electrical rate. It's interesting to note that this model is no longer produced by Apple, and that the new 2.26 GHz mini is even more energy efficient. Apple's own environmental report for the mini shows that the revised model uses only .80W when turned off, 1.39W in sleep mode, but 13.4W while in idle mode. Not surprisingly, other Apple models were near the top of the charts in both the laptop and all-in-one computer categories. The 1.86 GHz MacBook Air was barely edged out of first place in the laptop category by the HP Pavilion DM3. Although the two laptops had identical annual energy costs (US$2.39), the HP model had lower sleep and off power consumption than the MBA. In the all-in-one category, the top iMac came in 6th behind eMachines, Acer, Asus, and MSI all-in-ones. Although the sust-it site is citing an iMac model that is no longer produced, even the new iMacs would be a bit behind the list-leading eMachines EZ1601. If the power consumption and CO2 footprint of your computer is of concern to you, the sust-it site is a good place to make comparisons. Be aware, however, that due to the fast-paced changes in the computing world, the lists may be inaccurate at any particular point in time. In addition, it doesn't appear that sust-it looks at the total lifecycle energy consumption of the computers, something that Apple provides in their environmental reports for each model. When energy consumption and CO2 production are factored from raw materials at the beginning of production to recycling of an obsolete machine, Macs may very well lead the pack in all categories.TUAWApple's Mac mini tops chart of 'green' computers originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments MacMini - Apple - iMac - Unofficial Apple Weblog - MacBook Air

  • Greenpeace praises Apple's US Chamber of Commerce exit

    Filed under: Apple Corporate, AppleGreenpeace has decided they'll get more attention from praising Apple than by trying to bury it. The environmental organization is singing hosannas and heysannas to the Cupertino-company for taking a green stand and resigning from the US Chamber of Commerce. Apple walked away from the organization on Monday over Chamber actions seen by Apple as opposing efforts to limit greenhouse gases. Chamber President Thomas Donohue says his organization does want to see "legislation to address climate change," though the Chamber is against current proposals that, he says, will "significantly raise energy prices, (and) throw more Americans out of work." Greenpeace revels in the kerfuffle, saying in a post on its website, "Apple has stormed out of the biggest lobby group in the United States. At issue is the US Chamber of Commerce's use of funds to oppose climate change legislation. Apple has done the right thing, and IBM and Microsoft should think different too." (See what they did there?) The environmental organization says the Chamber should consider the number of jobs that would be created by helping clean up the environment. It's hard to see these two groups hugging it out. Still, it's praise and adoration for Apple, with the "save the whales" set saying, "The stakes have never been higher for the climate. Apple's move will throw an uncomfortable spotlight on any company that stays on in the Chamber but doesn't act to change its policies." Interesting. I wonder if Apple thought of that. [via cnet]TUAWGreenpeace praises Apple's US Chamber of Commerce exit originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Sponsored Topics: Climate change - Apple - United States - Microsoft - IBM

  • The Greening of Apple: Is It Important To You?

    Apple is putting a lot of emphasis on its “green” initiatives lately. But is it the real deal? For example, Apple's new energy efficiency page says that because 53 percent of Apple's greenhouse gas emissions are a result of the power its products consume, it's designing these products to be as energy efficient as possible employing three strategies to reduce energy consumption: more efficient power supplies, components that require less power, and power management software. Every new Mac is claimed to meet the strict low-power requirements of the Energy Star specification. However, the operative questions are how much does “green computing” matter to consumers, and whether corporate marketing of “green” IT devices amounts to more image-spinning than substance. Only the Bare Minimum? Some critics, such as MacNewsWorld's Rob Enderle accuse Apple of doing the “barest minimum necessary” to justify its “green” claims — indeed less than its major competitors, but viewed pragmatically that's a sensible approach because based on his research into the matter, in Enderle's view Apple's customers mostly don't care. Is that an accurate assessment, or exaggeratedly jaundiced? After all, environmentalist poster boy Al Gore sits on Apple's board of directors. Enderle claims that Apple tried to ignore green computing entirely until the eco-activist organization Greenpeace began relentlessly slagging the company as an environmental foot-dragger and laggard. Addressing Apple's Environmental Footprint Apple's website highlights several key areas in which it's addressing its environmental footprint, citing engineering innovations such as the unibody MacBooks, whose light, fully recyclable housing is sculpted from a single billet of aluminum, and the lightness of the current iMacs which contain less than 20 pounds of materials. Apple also claims to be at the industry forefront in eliminating toxic chemicals, such as arsenic, brominated flame retardants (BFRs), mercury, phthalates, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from its products. Cupertino has reduced packaging bulk, and, somewhat questionably in my view, bundles fewer peripherals with its systems, which arguably has some minimal environmental benefit, but also saves Apple a fair bit of money while diminishing value to the consumer of what is a premium-priced product. Diminishing Value for Minimal Environmental Benefit For example, the new WallStreet PowerBook I bought in 1999 came with video, Ethernet, and modem cables and a decent hard copy manual. To connect the unibody MacBook I bought this year to an external monitor I need one of several varieties of Mini DisplayPort adapters, have to supply my own Ethernet cable, was obliged to buy a USB modem, and documentation amounted to a quick start pamphlet. Environmental sensibilities notwithstanding, I don't perceive this as progress. Apple's claims of cleaning up its environmental footprint act do have substance in terms of operational energy consumption. One reason using laptops has long appealed to me is that because they must be able to operate on battery power, they're engineered for energy efficiency. However, even Apple's mass market desktops have very decent energy consumption profiles these days, with iMacs reportedly using about as much energy as a 60-watt lightbulb, and Mac minis substantially less than that. How Much Does the Average Mac-buyer Care? But how much does the average Mac-buyer care? I've been almost exclusively a laptop user for the past 13 years, but even back when I used desktops, I almost always shut them down if I would be away from the keyboard for a half-hour or more. My observation was that most people were inclined to just leave their computers up and running all day, and even in many instances all night as well. My inference, not only in the context of personal computers and other IT devices, is that while people like to think of themselves as being “green” and environmentally conscientious, their resolve tends to flag quickly when reducing their personal environmental footprint begins to involve more than minimal inconvenience and/or significantly increased cost, so that for many a commitment to “greenness” is heavier on politically correct rhetoric and feel-good exercises that let one imagine they're “doing something” virtuous to save the planet with empty symbolic gestures rather than substantive behavior changes, like, say, taking fewer showers or washing clothes less often, or shutting off (or sleeping) their computer when not using it. A Pew Research study found the average North American's definition of what constitutes “necessity” these days includes a car (91 percent), washer (90 percent), dryer (83 percent), home air conditioning (83 percent), microwave (68 percent), TV (64 percent), car air conditioning (59 percent), and home computers (51 percent). Substantial minorities also included cell phone (49 percent), dishwasher (35 percent), cable or satellite TV (33 percent), and high-speed Internet (29 percent), and a few even considered a flat screen TV (5 percent) and an iPod (3 percent) “necessities.” Am I being overly cynical? How much do Apple's and the other computer-makers' green efforts impact your buying intentions and user behavior?

  • Apple updates green website

    Filed under: Desktops, Hardware, AppleMacworld has spotted a new page over on Apple's website highlighting their dedication to making their products as environmentally healthy as possible. We've seen this pitch from Apple within the past few years -- they've recently slimmed down their packaging and started using recyclable materials in making their computers. It's pretty interesting to see them making such a push on this issue, but then again it not only helps them sell computers (assuming they don't have to raise prices too high due to the new policies), but of course helps the culture and the Earth at large in terms of making sure our environmental footprints are as small as possible. The new site includes information about the impact of Apple's products both during manufacture and during usage, as well as reports on product performance, as well as a blog on what they're doing lately. They also have a link to their recycling program so that when you're done with whatever Apple products you're using, you can make sure that those recyclable products are actually recycled. Pretty good deal all around, and good for Apple to make it clear how committed they are to this issue and acting on it.TUAWApple updates green website originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Sponsored Topics: Apple - Unofficial Apple Weblog - TUAW - IPhone - Website

  • Dell comments on Apple's green commitment, TUAW translates from PR-speak to English

    Filed under: HumorDell executive Bob Pearson decided to comment on Apple's "green" ad campaign. It was hard to understand. We were confused. Fortunately, Robert was nice enough to translate. The original post, on Dell's site, is here. "Several Dell folks were surprised and perplexed to see Apple's new 'green' MacBook ad since its release last month and we've been watching the discussions in the blogosphere. After chatting with our environmental teams about the topic, we realized that instead of ignoring it, we should have a conversation about the real meaning of being green from the viewpoint of a Fortune 500 company." In a desperate attempt to dredge up this environment issue from October, I bought lunch for a few of my subordinates, ordered them to be in the "Sunset Plains" conference room at noon, and told them we would be discussing this. "Our view is that companies who choose to lead have an obligation to be open and transparent. We have a responsibility to engage in dialogue about the environment, whether we agree or disagree with an individual person or group. It all contributes to the greater good." We like to sit around and shoot the breeze about stuff. When there isn't enough breeze-shooting, we shoot it ourselves, con-sarn it. "What is not good is to skip steps, avoid dialogue and pray that people aren't smart enough to figure it out. That doesn't help any of us and it certainly doesn't further the environmental cause for those of us who care deeply about it." Honestly, talking is the only thing we do well.Continue reading Dell comments on Apple's green commitment, TUAW translates from PR-speak to EnglishTUAWDell comments on Apple's green commitment, TUAW translates from PR-speak to English originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 20 Dec 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • 10 reasons to pass on the iPad? TUAW fact check

    Filed under: iPod Family, Portables, Odds and endsOver at TechRepublic's 10 Things blog, Debra Littlejohn Shinder has posted an article called "10 reasons why I'll be passing on the iPad." Some of her reasoning is sound, but quite a few of her points are easy to refute. It's worth looking at her post and the points it tries to make, because it's indicative of a widespread misunderstanding of not only the iPad's capabilities, but also its intended consumer base. 1. There's no physical keyboard Debra's correct that the iPad has no physical keyboard. But what she fails to account for is that not only will Apple sell a keyboard dock for the iPad, the device can also be paired with any existing Bluetooth keyboard. Apple's reasoning for not including a physical keyboard on the iPad is even more compelling than for the iPhone, because unlike the iPhone, you at least have the option of pairing the iPad with a physical keyboard. In order to put a physical keyboard on the device itself, there'd be two options: keep the iPad the same size and sacrifice a third of the screen's real estate, or increase the iPad's size beyond what some (including Debra) already consider unwieldy in order to include a keyboard. In landscape orientation, the iPad's virtual keyboard is nearly the size of a conventional keyboard, too, so while touch typing is going to be a challenge, it's a fair bet that typing on the iPad will be much faster and easier than the high end of 30 - 35 WPM thumb typing many people (myself included) achieve on the iPhone's far smaller keyboard. The lack of a physical keyboard on the iPhone hasn't measurably affected its sales; the iPad isn't likely to suffer many lost sales from this, either. Check out the other nine points by clicking the Read More link below. 2. One size doesn't fit all Debra claims that if the iPad is supposed to be a niche device positioned between a phone and a netbook, it should have a screen size midway between the two -- in other words, smaller than a 9.7" screen. However, that's not how Steve Jobs positioned the iPad at all during the keynote; Jobs's Keynote slide clearly showed the iPad filling a gap between the iPhone/iPod touch and a 13" MacBook. It's puzzling that in one sentence Debra complains about the iPad being too large to fit in your pocket, while in the next sentence she extols the virtues of Sony's VAIO X netbooks, which are almost exactly the same size - in terms of weight and thickness anyway. The VAIO X has an 11.1" 16:9 display, which actually makes it quite a bit larger than the iPad. One other thing about the VAIO X is quite a bit larger than the iPad: the price, which starts at $1299 -- far more expensive than even the priciest iPad. While it's true the iPad won't fit in your pocket, it's still far more portable than even a MacBook Air. Stephen Colbert even managed to pull one out of his jacket at the Grammys, so while the iPad is larger than an iPhone, it's far from the unwieldy monster many people are trying to claim it is. 3. It runs a phone OS One thing many pundits fail to account for is that the iPhone OS is actually a version of OS X adapted for a touchscreen device. No, there's no Finder, Dock, or menu bar. No, there's no Exposé, Spaces, or Time Machine. But the underpinnings of the iPhone OS are exactly the same as those of the Mac version of OS X. So when people complain the iPad doesn't run OS X, they're really pining for OS X features like the ones I already mentioned -- the Finder, Dock, menu bar, etc. However, none of those OS X features are particularly suited to a touchscreen device, especially one with a 9.7" screen. Tablet PCs running the full version of Windows have already demonstrated the pitfalls of running an OS meant for a larger device with a traditional point-and-click interface, and as a result, almost all of those devices have failed to gain traction in the market. Debra and others also cite the iPad's lack of multitasking as a strike against it. On this point, at least, I agree with them. While iPhone OS already allows for limited multitasking among Apple's own apps -- Phone, Messages, Mail, Safari, and iPod can all run simultaneously in the background -- third-party apps are still restricted to workarounds like push notifications. While restricting multitasking makes a kind of sense on devices like the iPhone 3G, with limited processing power and RAM available, on the iPad those technological limitations don't fly as an excuse. You can argue that not having multitasking on the iPad makes it easier to use for Grandma and other non-techies, but it also limits the device's potential utility. Granted, the iPad isn't positioned as a replacement for a MacBook, but the ability to run even one or two third-party apps in the background would make the device far more versatile. Personally, I would be very surprised if Apple doesn't introduce at least a limited form of multitasking in iPhone OS 4.0. Of course, I also said the same thing last year about iPhone OS 3.0, so who knows. One point bears mentioning, though: despite the introduction of iWork for the iPad, Apple is still pushing the device as a platform for consuming media, not as a productivity platform. To get any serious work done, Apple still expects you'll use your main computer, whether it's a MacBook, iMac, or PC. 4. There's not enough storage The most important question to ask on this point is, "For whom?" Debra says the 64 GB model might have enough capacity for her purposes, but she also grouses about the price of that model, comparing it to cheaper netbooks with "four times the storage." I will say that I'm puzzled at Apple's decision to top out the iPad's capacity at 64 GB, especially considering that's where the iPod touch currently tops out. A 128 GB iPad would have been very tempting indeed; unfortunately, given the price of flash memory, it also would have probably cost more than $1000. But what does 64 GB allow you to store? In my case, a 64 GB iPad would hold my entire 39 GB music library -- 19 days worth of music -- plus my entire iPhoto library of over 7000 photos, which, when optimized for the iPad's screen, would probably take up somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 GB, plus or minus a GB or two. At my most app-crazy I had about 2 GB of apps on my iPhone 3G, and "Other" space, presumably including the OS itself, takes up just over 1 GB. Added up, that equates to 47 out of 64 GB. In my case, that leaves over 15 GB of space for document storage, videos, and so forth. Let's say I store my entire Documents folder on the iPad (I wouldn't -- I use iDisk and Dropbox for that) -- 4300 documents taking up just over 2 GB of space. Now we have 13 GB left over for videos and whatever else. Even if I left myself a 3 GB buffer for whatever reason (including accounting for the GB versus GiB difference), that's still 10 GB of space for videos -- enough to store 10 two-hour films at a decent bitrate, or almost an entire season of an hour-long TV series. Let me break that down again -- a 64 GB iPad would store: -- 19 days of music -- 7000 photos -- Well over 100 apps -- A 2 GB Documents folder with 4300 items -- 20 hours of video -- Around 3 GB of space left over for whatever else (temporary photo storage, e-books, accounting for the difference between binary gigabytes versus decimal gigabytes, etc.) Granted, there are people out there with music and photo libraries larger than mine, but most of my Mac-using friends only have, on average, 1500 items in their iTunes libraries, a thousand or so photos, and maybe three pages of apps on their iPhones. 64 GB may not sound like much on paper, but practically speaking, it lets you pack around a lot of media. Unless you're going to spend weeks at a time away from your main computer, the iPad should be able to carry around enough media to keep almost anyone entertained for days on end. 5. There's no HDMI output or camera Debra claims you can't output the iPad's video to an HDTV without an HDMI connector. That simply isn't true; with a VGA adapter, you can output the iPad's full 1024 x 768 video signal to an HDTV. With a component connector, you can output a 576p PAL signal or a 480p NTSC signal to your TV. Okay, fine, it's not 1080p ultra-high-def video, but where exactly are you going to find video of that resolution anyway (besides Blu-Ray and Bittorrent)? I'll admit that it would have been nice to have at least 1366 x 768 video (1080i, in other words), but I'm betting that the vast majority of consumers aren't going to even bother hooking the iPad up to their TV at all when it's far easier to just put the screen on their laps and watch a movie on the iPad itself instead. Another point Debra brings up is the iPad's 3:4 aspect ratio, which is less than ideal for video. This has been argued all over the internet, including here at TUAW, but as many people have pointed out, the 3:4 aspect ratio is ideally suited to pretty much every other function on the iPad except video: books, documents, web pages, and photos are all laid out far closer to a 3:4 or 4:3 ratio than 16:9. Using a 16:9 ratio on the iPad would not only make the device larger than it already is, it would also leave all other forms of media on the device at a disadvantage compared to video. The iPad's lack of camera is another point Debra and others have brought out against the device, but like multitasking, this is one point on which I agree. A back-facing camera like the iPhone's doesn't make a lot of sense on the iPad -- it would be a bit unwieldy trying to take pictures or video with a device this size, rather like trying to hold up a MacBook Air to take photos with its iSight. Most people probably have a standalone point-and-shoot camera that would take better stills and/or video than the iPad's hypothetical back-facing camera anyway, and you can load those pictures directly onto the device with either the iPad-specific camera connector or SD card reader. But a front-facing camera for video conferencing definitely would have been a killer feature. Apple apparently thought so, too, because it actually included a space in the iPad for exactly such a camera, only to withdraw it for reasons known only to Apple. Whether the company is waiting for the next-gen iPad to introduce a camera or pulling a big switcheroo like it did with the original iPhone -- which was originally supposed to ship with the scratch-prone plastic face of previous iPods, but was replaced with nearly scratch-proof glass in the six months between its announcement and release -- no one can say. 6. There are no USB ports Debra's main complaints against the lack of USB ports are that you can't hook up a flash drive or a USB keyboard. As far as the keyboard goes, I've already mentioned the fact that you can purchase a keyboard dock or use a Bluetooth keyboard. As for not being able to hook up a flash drive? I can see why some people might want to do this -- expanding the iPad's storage, transferring files, etc. But I'm willing to bet that for most people this isn't going to be an issue. While I run the risk of sounding like Bill Gates's infamous "640K should be enough for anyone" by saying so (although Gates never actually said that), 64 GB of space on a device like the iPad really should suit most users' needs -- at least for the next couple of years, anyway. As for transferring files? I can think of a number of existing, cloud-based solutions, the most simplistic of which is e-mail. No, you can't transfer several gigabytes of files at a time through e-mail or "the cloud," but most people don't transfer that much data all at one go even a handful of times with a portable device, much less on a regular basis. I'm not going to go full fanboy and say it's a good thing the iPad doesn't come with USB ports. In fact, I'm kind of with Debra and the others on this one in wishing that Apple included at least one USB port. While I probably wouldn't use the port very often (if at all), it definitely falls into the category of "nice to have." I've been an iPod user for almost five years and an iPhone user for a year, and I can count the number of times I've needed/wanted a USB port on one of those devices on exactly no fingers... but I'll admit that I might sing a different tune with a bigger device like an iPad. But for most of the people who are likely to buy the iPad, i.e., the non-geek, non-techie, "I just want internet and music and movies" folks, they're probably not going to miss USB ports at all. 7. There's no flash memory slot No, the iPad doesn't have a flash memory slot. You can buy an SD card reader attachment, though, although Debra and others rail against the added cost of the connector, claiming that in order to reach "the functional equivalent of a netbook, you may end up spending a bundle." A lot of the same arguments for or against USB apply here as well; most non-geeks aren't going to miss an SD slot at all. Transferring documents via SD cards in 2010 reeks of the "sneakernet" we thought we were abolishing along with dot-matrix printers and 2800 baud modems; let's just say that most users are going to have photos and/or videos on their SD cards, most users are going to wait until they get home to their main computer to upload those files, and most users aren't going to care that the iPad's missing a dedicated SD slot any more than they cared about the iPod missing one. If anything, the argument for an SD slot is far weaker than the argument for USB. 8. The price is not right Debra claims the iPad "costs twice as much as the Kindle and other ebook readers." That's flat-out false. The $499 iPad does cost almost twice as much as the standard Kindle, but compared to every other e-reader out there, the iPad's pricing is extremely competitive once you consider all the things the iPad does that the other readers iDon't. A $489 Kindle DX, for example, while $10 cheaper than the cheapest iPad, doesn't have a color screen, has only 4 GB of storage, doesn't have a touchscreen, doesn't run apps, doesn't have e-mail, music, and so on, and so forth. The iPad's price is the one aspect of the device that few pundits have complained about; in fact, the pricing has Wall Street and other financial analysts doing cartwheels. You don't even have to compare the iPad to other companies' similar products to see how good a deal it is. The 16 GB iPad costs $300 more than an 8 GB iPod touch. That $300 gets you twice the capacity, a much larger and higher-quality screen, a more powerful CPU, better Wi-Fi including 802.11n, vastly improved battery performance, a built-in speaker and microphone, and, eventually, access to a host of apps designed to take advantage of the iPad's larger screen and higher performance. A 32 GB iPad has the same $300 price difference compared to a 32 GB iPod touch, as does the 64 GB model. Once you tack on an additional $130 for 3G wireless the price difference widens, but so does the device's utility -- access to wireless broadband anywhere there's an available 3G network, which, as iPhone users already know, is invaluable. Debra compares the fully kitted-out $829 3G-enabled iPad to "a powerful compact laptop that runs a full-fledged operating system and multi-tasks and that has USB and SD and Ethernet connectors, 4 GB of RAM, and 250 GB of storage." The "full-fledged operating system" she's talking about isn't OS X, however, and the laptop she's talking about definitely isn't manufactured by Apple. That might not make a difference to a lot of people, but if you're already in the "Macs cost too much" camp, it's no wonder the iPad doesn't hold much appeal compared to that Windows Home Edition running, plastic, bargain-bin quality laptop from Dell or HP that's almost certain to stop working in two years or less. Yes, I recognize the extremely fanboyish sound of that sentence. No, I don't apologize for it. Cheap laptops are exactly that: cheap. Call it elitism, fanboyism, Kool-Aid drinking, whatever: I'd much rather put up with the iPad's shortcomings than those of the "powerful" but oh-so-cheapo laptops of other manufacturers. 9. It's locked in "You have to buy your apps from the App Store," Debra notes. Yes, you do: from a store that has over 140,000 apps available, most of them for free, and capable of doing almost anything. Hate the App Store for some reason? Fine. Jailbreak the thing and use Cydia instead. Apple may not want you to do this, and they may go out of their way to prevent it, but if you're of the jailbreaking mindset already, that's not going to stop you, is it? A very vocal minority of people love to complain about "vendor lock-in" when it comes to the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, even though those same people have likely been playing around with video game systems from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft for decades -- all platforms with "vendor lock-in" even more pervasive and insidious than that of Apple's platform. What these people don't seem to realize is that same vendor lock-in is precisely what keeps Apple's portable platforms from being riddled with viruses, malware, and apps made of more crap than code. "Security through obscurity" may be a valid(ish) argument to fall back upon with the Mac, but with 75 million plus people using the iPhone OS, it's a very high-profile target for virus writers. That same "walled garden" that Linux proponents and "open internet" evangelists whine about is what keeps the iPhone platform from being an unusable nightmare. Yes, the App Store approval process has in many cases been a pain in the nether regions, but things are improving -- apps that might have once taken days or weeks to get approved are now getting through the approval process in a matter of hours. Has the App Store's "lock-in" affected sales of the iPhone one iota? No. In fact, sales of the iPhone took way off after the App Store's arrival. Yes, "Apple as gatekeeper" gets the George Orwell fans riled. But someone has to keep the gate, because the instant the iPhone OS becomes a truly "open" platform like some people are espousing, that's the same instant the Russian mafia remote-hijacks your iPhone from a basement in Vladivostok because you just had to download that "Siberian Honeys" app from the dark alleys of the internet. Other aspects of dreaded "lock-in" that Debra's concerned about are riddled with falsehoods. "You can't run Skype to make phone calls," with the iPad, she claims. "We wouldn't want to cut into the iPhone market, after all." Say what? That must be news to the Skype team, who's already investigating an iPad-specific Skype app. It must be news to Apple, too, who no longer restricts the use of VoIP over 3G. "Nor can you download Flash to install on the browser, which means you won't be watching those YouTube videos." Say what again? Since when is the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad incapable of watching YouTube videos? Oh right: since never. No, you can't put Flash on the iPad, but according to our informal poll, 75% of people planning on buying one either don't care or are outright glad Flash isn't making an appearance. What about hardware "lock-in?" Debra says that "you can't even remove and replace the battery yourself," which has been true of every single iPod since 2001 and hasn't stopped people from buying them by the millions. She goes on and says, "if you were flying to Australia and wanted to bring along an extra battery for the extra-long flight, forget about it." Um. A two-second Google search for "iPhone external battery" might have been a good idea. Plus, speaking from personal experience, if you stay awake for a full flight across the Pacific Ocean, you're going to have a lot more pressing issues to worry about than your iPad's battery, like the fact that you're going to feel like you got run over by a truck after the plane lands. Take it from one who knows: Trans-Pacific flights are best spent in blissful unconsciousness. 10. The network Yep, the iPad's 3G connection is only available on AT&T's network... if you live in the United States. If, like me, you live in what's known informally as "the rest of the world," this argument against buying a 3G-enabled iPad holds no water for you. But let's stick to the States for a moment and analyze Debra's argument against AT&T's network. No, AT&T isn't everyone (or possibly even anyone)'s favorite US network, but the pay-as-you-go, completely contract-free plans available for the iPad are very compellingly priced. You can get 250 MB of data for $14.99 (not the $20 Debra claims in her article), which is more than enough for casual data usage. 250 MB doesn't sound like a lot on paper, but that's what my iPhone plan started out at here in New Zealand. I never once went over 100 MB or so of monthly data usage until I started using iPhone tethering, and I'd consider my data usage fairly robust. The "unlimited" AT&T plan at $30 a month is an even better deal, and even if "unlimited" only means 5 GB, you're not going to burn through that much data unless you're using the connection every waking hour of the month. Debra's argument against these plans is that it's another bill to pay on top of your cell phone bill, but that's the beauty of the iPad plans: without a contract to commit to, you can cancel the plan whenever you want. If you start out with the $30/month "unlimited" plan on the iPad, only to find out your usage isn't topping 250 MB, rather than being locked in to that plan for another 23 months, you can downgrade to the $15 plan. If you find that you don't need the 3G coverage at all, you can always buy the Wi-Fi only iPad. "Here's wishing you good luck on finding those Wi-Fi hot spots," Debra says in response to that idea, which sounds about right for us in New Zealand, where free Wi-Fi is about as rare as gold, but makes much less sense in the US, where free Wi-Fi is usually only a library or café away. If you absolutely must have 3G on the iPad, absolutely must not use AT&T, and are prepared to spend twice as much for the privilege of going with Verizon, you always have the option of hooking the iPad up to a MiFi (possibly -- we'll have to wait until the iPad's actually released before we know if this will work or not). Additionally, just because the iPad isn't available on Verizon right now (now now NOW) doesn't mean it never will be; Apple and Verizon are reportedly "still talking" about bringing the iPad and/or iPhone over to the network. We've come to the end of Debra's ten points, but not to the end of mine. My final point, the one that sums up all of this: like the Mac, like the iPod, and like the iPhone, the iPad is not for everyone. It's not even for me -- despite all the words I've just spent defending it, I'm not buying an iPad until next year at the earliest, and only if I decide against replacing my current, aging MacBook Pro with the same computer rather than an iMac/iPad combo. The bottom line is that the iPad can't be all things to all people. It's not meant to replace a full-fledged Mac or PC -- it's meant as an ultraportable extension of a larger device, and one with a far simpler and more intuitive interface, a "computer for the rest of us," if you will. And make no mistake: for every Debra Littlejohn Shinder, for every "open internet" geek who screams "vendor lock-in" every time Apple's name is mentioned, for every "no multitasking, no Flash, no sale" techie, for every dismissive pundit who shrugs and says, "It's just a big iPod touch," there's at least one person who has been waiting for a device just like the iPad, and those people are the ones who will make it a success. Whether you like it or hate it, the iPad is indicative of the future direction of computing. But, just for the sake of argument, let's say we can cook up a portable computer far "better" than an iPad, a dream device that has USB, 1080p output, a removable battery, runs the full version of OS X, has a front-facing camera, isn't dependent on AT&T, isn't "locked in" to the App Store, has a physical keyboard, widescreen-formatted display, and has more than 64 GB of storage. What might such a device look like? Oh. Right. TUAW10 reasons to pass on the iPad? TUAW fact check originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Apple - iPhone - Steve Job - IPod Touch - Sony

  • 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 that’s hardly news, it’s still a hassle that isn’t going away. Say you picked up a spiffy new MacBook Pro, and it’s 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 you’ve got a feeling there’s great, affordable software just waiting for you to find it--and you’re 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?We’re here to help with a compendium of essential software. It didn’t 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 we’re highlighting to 50, we’ve guaranteed you the best of the best--no Internet spew here. And by capping the cost of the software we’ve selected at $50, we’ve made sure you can reasonably buy what you need. You may love your Mac already, but you’re 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 don’t miss schlepping around fragile cassette tapes or heavy wallets full of CDs. But even the mighty iPod has its limits--namely capacity. That’s where Simplify Media (free, Simplify Media, simplifymedia.com) comes in handy. It guarantees that the size of your music library doesn’t 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 friends’ 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. It’s 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 don’t think too much about player software. But move beyond the most basic video types, and you’re 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. It’s 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 kids’ movies for the minivan, watching Glee on your iPod touch while you’re 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 ĂĽbernerds, 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 Hodgman’s More Information Than You Require.   Connect360 We’re Apple-faithful, but that doesn’t 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 you’re an avid follower of music blogs, Peel can automagically grab new tracks as they’re 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 doesn’t quite translate at home. iTunes can attempt to find the album art that makes Cover Flow actually useful, but it’s limited in scope and can’t 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. Don’t Cover Flow without it.   TuneUp For all of those untitled and mistitled tracks in your music library, there’s 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 “less is more,” 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. You’re 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 Word’s .doc format. The preferences offer tons of customization: auto-save, character counts, the appearance of text in full-screen mode, and more. But WriteRoom’s real magic is how it gets out of your way and lets you focus on what you’re 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, “Everything you can do, I can do better.” And it’s 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 we’ve 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). We’ve tried multiple task-managment systems, from Web-based ToodleDo to iPhone apps like ToDo to Mail’s 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, it’s completely free. Wahoo!  NoteBook The Mac is silly with note-taking applications (Evernote, Yojimbo, ShoveBox, MacJournal…shall we go on?), but Circus Ponies’ NoteBook ($49.95, Circus Ponies, www.circusponies.com) is a standout. If you subscribe to “a place for everything, and everything in its place,” 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, they’re 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 recipe’s 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 they’re Web-based. Plus, if you’re somewhere without Internet access, you can’t 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 won’t 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 you’re sending a tweet from on the fly, and let you drag and drop pics and videos right into the Compose window. Don’t 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 you’re 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. That’s 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 Dropbox’s 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 doesn’t 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 you’re 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 friends’ feeds, saved searches, mentions, direct mentions, and Facebook updates. You can also keep up with trending topics with just a quick glance. If there’s something you need to track on Twitter, TweetDeck can make a column for it.   Vuze Allegedly, BitTorrent steals medication from senior citizens, but isn’t 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 you’ve done the downloading, Vuze can convert your files for use on the iPhone, Apple TV, iPod, Xbox 360, TiVo, and PlayStation 3. It’ll even stream videos to your set-top boxes. Nice!   BannerZest Creating Flash banners is difficult, especially when you don’t 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. That’s 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 it’s 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, you’re knee-deep in samples, frequencies, and bitrates. Sound editing really is part science, part black magic, so we’re thankful that Audacity (free, SourceForge, audacity.sourceforge.net) removes one of the biggest obstacles: choosing a quality application and figuring out how you’re 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 it’ll work with multiple files types in the same project. Audacity is also is cross-platform, so if you’re 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--it’s Google’s 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 Google’s 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 that’ll 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, “How do I make a ringtone for my iPhone?” 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 doesn’t have to cost you hundreds of dollars. In fact, with Acorn ($49.95, Flying Meat, www.flyingmeat.com/acorn), you’ll get features like layers, AppleScript support, 64-bit support, drawing, and filters in a package that’s easy on the wallet. This easy-to-use software strips away most of the features most people don’t 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--it’s 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 it’s a nice feature if you’re 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. It’ll highlight mouse clicks and keyboard events, adding a nifty visual cue into your screencasts that highlights what you’re 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 can’t 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 animators’ 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. You’ll 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 application’s icon into your Applications folder, and you’re pretty much good to go. Deleting them is just as simple--just grab them and toss them into the Trash. But if you’ve ever dug around Library or System folders on your Mac, you’ll 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 that’s also great for troubleshooting problems. Wiping out all of an application’s 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 it’s like OS X’s Folder Actions… if they were super-awesome, easy to use, and perfect for helping you keep your Mac’s 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.You’ve 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 that’s 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 won’t 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 doesn’t 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 iPhone’s 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 iPhone’s memory. No jailbreaking is required, but more adventurous users with jailbroken phones can also recover contacts, messages, email, and other data. It’s a powerful tool, but it’s simple to use for the careful novice.  AppleJack AppleJack (free, The Apotek, applejack.sourceforge.net) is one of those things you’ll install once and never think about again—if everything goes right. But if, god forbid, your Mac starts acting weird one day--or stops acting, period--it’ll be AppleJack to the rescue. It’s 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, there’s 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 Mac’s hard drive so you’ll be ready to go when disaster strikes. Just plug in your clone, restart, and you’re 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 don’t 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 there’s just not enough space on your internal disks. Clean My Mac ($29.95, MacPaw, macpaw.com) can help with that problem, scouring your Mac’s drive and tossing out all sorts of gunk you don’t need. Use it to toss unneeded language files, scrub extraneous code from universal binaries, and thoroughly clean up after deleted applications.   rooSwitch OS X’s 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--we’ve had many discussions about the empires we built in our childhood bedrooms and how much we miss “playing Legos” 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. It’s a 3D Lego-model creator, offering drag-and-drop construction using thousands of parts in every color of Lego’s rainbow. Tutorials and the one finished model that’s included show you the ropes, and once you’re done with your virtual creation, you can export step-by-step instructions to build it for real. There’s even a mini figure generator where you can design and outfit a matching Lego man and insert him into your model. This software couldn’t 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 “101 Essential Apps for 2008,” 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), it’s 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 Erma’s secret matzo ball soup stays in the family.Once a recipe’s 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 Mac’s built-in speech recognition lets you advance the recipe’s 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, don’cha 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 it’s a snap to drag the start and end dates around on the timeline. The Arrange button will automatically stagger your timeline’s events into the most logical and easy-to-read order, and the Inspector lets you tweak fonts, colors, titles, labels, and your timeline’s 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 Beginner’s 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 I’m a beginning bass player--like, very beginning. So it’s a huge help that I don’t 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 iTunes’ 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. It’s missing many of the blinky lights and thingamajigs of the big boys, and that’s 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 won’t 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 won’t 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 “research.” 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, it’s 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 you’ll 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 Rubik’s cube. And while most of you probably never cracked the damn thing (we didn’t!), 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 Rubik’s cube, figuring it all out is the real reward. Freeware Fun If you’re 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 doesn’t require beefy hardware because it runs through your Web browser. But that doesn’t 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 character’s look, and participate in a virtual world that’s just like our own. You don’t even have to watch the clock to make sure you’re 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 

  • Dear Apple: What we want to see in iPhone 4.0, part 2

    Filed under: Features, iPhone First, I want to take a moment to thank all of you. The response to the first open letter has been incredible, and it wouldn't have been possible without your suggestions. This is the second in a series of letters from you, the TUAW reader, to Apple. This time around I received over 1500 emails with suggestions on how to improve the next iPhone's hardware. While the next iPhone is expected sooner this year than in past years, and the hardware design has most likely long since been finalized, it's clear that plenty of you have your own ideas of how you want the next-generation iPhone to look and work. With that in mind, even though the next iPhone's hardware may be a done deal, let's hope Apple uses your suggestions in a future iPhone (or, if they use these suggestions in the upcoming one -- congrats, you guys are genius-level industrial designers!). Remember, these suggestions and desires don't necessarily align with the ideals of better battery life and 3G call performance... it's a wish list, not an engineering manual, and we do realize that reality can easily get in the way of the perfect design. Just like last time, because there were so many suggestions, I needed to whittle them down. To do that, I tabulated how many times a feature request was made. If more than 40% of you mentioned it, it made it into the letter. A lot of you want to hear the one-off suggestions so I'll add an extra letter onto the series at the end of its run to address those. Remember, this letter deals only with iPhone hardware. If you made suggestions about any of Apple's built-in apps (Mail, Maps, Stocks, Calendar, etc) you'll see those in the next letter. Without further ado, I present your letter to Apple: Dear Apple, While your hottest competitor isn't off to the best start, that could change on a dime. Most smartphone users, it seems, use the same apps. So what differentiates the phones? Well, the OS and the hardware. We already addressed the OS. Now let's talk hardware. Here's what we'd love to see: 1. Status indicator light. 90% of us want this. Some of us think a series of green dots (ala the MacBook's battery indicator lights) that flash when we have a new text or voicemail message would be cool, while some of us want a pulsating light like the sleep light on a MacBook. A few of us even think an illuminated Apple logo that pulsates when we've missed a call would be novel. While you may laugh at the last suggestion, it illustrates the fact that we're dying for a status indicator light in some form. 2. A new design casing. 90% of us think the 3G and 3GS are starting to look their age (and hey, in tech, a device that hasn't changed looks in 18 months looks ancient). We want a thinner casing - approaching iPod touch thinness, if possible (a tough request, we know, considering how much room the radios take up in the iPhone). We also want the new iPhone casing to have a look that mimics the industrial design of the aluminum unibody finish on the MacBooks - in other words, we love this mock-up Gizmodo did. 3. Front-facing camera. 80% of us want a front-facing video chat camera. Why? Because 80% of us believe we are good-looking enough that the people we talk to want to see us. It might also be good for conference calls: turn the iPhone to its side and see up to three people on your screen at once. 4. LED flash. Yeah, 75% of us believe the iPhone blows at taking low-light pictures. It's not exactly unreasonable to ask for a flash on phones nowadays. 5. 5MP+ camera. 70% of us want a new 5MP camera (or above) to go along with that new LED flash. 6. OLED display. 70% of us think the iPhone's 320x480 screen is a little too dainty for today's standards. We want a higher screen resolution to make our text and games pop and we think that higher res should be 480x800 on an OLED display for its clarity, thinness, and battery saving abilities. 7. 64GB storage. We've downloaded over 3 billion apps. Add those to the video we're now recording on our iPhones, in addition to all our songs and photos, and one thing seems becomes obvious: 32GB doesn't seem enough anymore. 60% of us ask that you plop 64GB of flash RAM in the next iPhone. 8. 802.11n. We're dying to have Wi-Fi syncing, but we realize that 802.11g might not be fast enough. 50% of us want faster wireless so we can sit on our couch and sync the latest photos and videos we took with our iPhone to the computer in the den. 9. RFID. Why? Besides some pretty cool near-object-based interaction, imagine the next iPhone eliminating the need to carry car keys or credit cards. Key fobs and 'smart' credit cards use a type of RFID called Near Field Communication. NFC consumes very little power, so it's attractive to add to mobile phones. Instead of using our keys to enter that new Prius, imagine just having the doors auto-unlock when we get in range of our car, or by launching an app. Better yet, let us leave our wallets at home. What if Apple teamed with Visa or MasterCard? We download the Visa app and use it to review our purchase right on the screen, then we simply swipe our iPhone at checkout and we're on our way. And we're sure you guys at Apple wouldn't mind take a half percentage point of every transaction too (from the credit card companies, not us!). You've already redefined the music, movie, mobile, and (soon enough) publishing industries. We think the credit card companies could use some Apple ingenuity as well. 10. Multi-touch casing. This one seemed like a long shot until recent rumors, but 40% of us would like to see some Magic Mouse-type love applied to the iPhone. The iPhone has a lot of surface area that isn't the screen. What if this currently un-utilized area could be transformed into a multi-touch surface? Imagine each side by the home button and speaker slit as a multi-touch area. When playing a video game in landscape mode, this new multi-touch surface could be used as physical buttons for some games, saving the display from your fingers and allowing you to see more of the action on screen. So there you have it: our suggestions for future iPhone hardware. But we're not done. We've got a lot to say about the iPhone's built-in apps. So get ready, and thanks for listening. You'll be hearing from us again soon. Sincerely, The loyal readers and iPhone owners of TUAW. TUAW Readers: The next letter will be published one week from today, on Sunday 1/24. We'll be telling Apple what we want from the next iPhone's built-in apps. So if you have any suggestions for the next version of Mail, Calendar, Messages, Phone, iPod, Photos, Camera, Stocks, YouTube, Maps, Weather, Voice Memos, Notes, Clock, Calculator, or Compass (whew!) email me attuawiphone [at] me dot com (by mid-day, Friday, January 22nd at the latest)! A big thanks to the 1500+ of you who contributed to this article. 'White iPhone' credit: Rodolphe Desmare.TUAWDear Apple: What we want to see in iPhone 4.0, part 2 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 17 Jan 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments iPhone - Apple - MacBook - IPod Touch - IPod Classic

  • Don't trust the critics: Four Apple products they thought would fail

    Filed under: iPod Family, iPhone, iPadEver since the iPad's introduction a month and a half ago, the internet has been awash in criticism of the as-yet-unreleased device. "It's just a big iPod touch," many have said. "No Flash, no multitasking, no sale," others bemoaned. And a few have gone so far as to say, "It doesn't do a lot of things that a netbook that costs half as much will do." For these reasons and many more, many of the pundits and forum dwellers have but one prediction: the iPad is going to crash and burn. Don't you believe it, because the critics have been wrong before. Several times, actually, according to The Week, which provides a list of five Apple products the critics thought would fail. Out of those five, only one, the Newton, failed to find mainstream success. The other four were industry-defining products which went on to sell millions of units each. What did the critics have to say about these four "failed" Apple products when they first debuted, and which products were they? Click "Read More" to find out. 1. The Mac It seems absurd now, but there was a time when some critics thought the Mac would be a complete failure. They considered the mouse-driven interface "Useless." Ponder that one for a bit. "Awkward," "Not easy to learn," and of course, "Costs too much" were other 1984-era complaints leveled at Apple's latest creation. These critics were used to the keyboard-driven interface of DOS-running PCs, and from the sounds of things, they considered the Mac, with its graphic user interface and "awkward" mouse, to be nothing more than an overpriced novelty, doomed to fail. I hardly need to tell you what happened next. The original Macintosh completely revolutionized the computer industry. Within only a short time, companies like Microsoft scrambled to duplicate the GUI/mouse combo the Mac brought to the market. Today, nearly every desktop, notebook, and netbook out there runs a GUI/mouse interface. And 26 years after the first Macintosh debuted, Apple still sells Macs by the millions every year. I wish I could fail half as hard as that. 2. The iMac "No floppy drive?!?" was the echoing cry among the tech world in 1998. Add to that the iMac's hermetically-sealed case and not particularly upgrade-friendly components, and once again, tech critics and build-it-yourself users who had been used to beige towers predicted the iMac would never catch on. Instead, the iMac sold like crazy and almost instantaneously doubled Apple's PC marketshare. Twelve years later, the iMac is still Apple's best-selling desktop, and it shows no signs of going anywhere anytime soon... unlike those floppy disks everyone once thought were so crucial. 3. The iPod One of the greatest things about the internet is that in a way, it's the closest any of us will get to time travel. Let's go back to October 23, 2001, and get Slashdot's now-famous opinion of the just-announced iPod: "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." The comments that follow are even better. "I don't see many sales in the future of iPod." "All I can say is, as an Apple 'fan', I'm sad." But don't just take Slashdot's word for it. The forum folks at MacRumors had some true gems too: "Great just what the world needs, another freaking MP3 player." "I still can't believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player?" "'I'd call it the Cube 2.0 as it wont sell, and be killed off in a short time...and it's not really functional." "The Reality Distiortion Field[TM] is starting to warp Steve's mind if he thinks for one second that this thing is gonna take off." "Not exactly 'revolutionary'. " "The real money is in DRM and distribution (ala Real Musicnet). If Apple were smart they would be focusing on high gross revenue from services rather than a playback device." "It is by no means revolutionary or groundbreaking. It is an MP3 player. BFD. It is just a step in the evolution of an MP3 player [...] Think different is dead." It goes on like that, for pages and pages. And this is at a site full of Apple fans, the majority of whom were unimpressed with the iPod at best and thought it was Apple's death knell at worst. People who weren't great fans of Apple at the time, like the guys behind Penny Arcade, had even harsher things to say about the iPod, even two years after its release (not safe for work language -- it is Penny Arcade, after all). Over nine years later, where are we? Over a quarter of a billion iPods have been sold since then, and it's largely due to the iPod's momentum that Apple has become the phenomenal success it is today. 4. The iPhone For the first half of 2007, before the iPhone actually hit stores, people either thought it was the greatest innovation of the past ten years (at least) or an overpriced, overhyped device that lacked features common to many other phones. Of course, there was no lack of punditry from those who thought the iPhone was doomed, and Apple right along with it. Tech critic John Dvorak said of the iPhone, "I'd advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you'll see." A former CEO of Palm said, "We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in." And who could forget Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, perhaps the best-remembered critic of the iPhone: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." Ballmer claimed Apple would be lucky to get 2-3% cellphone marketshare. Over 42 million iPhones later, Apple has become the largest mobile device company in the world. And whether you agree that HTC and other phone manufacturers have violated Apple's patents or not, the influence the iPhone has had on the smartphone industry is undeniable. Before June of 2007, almost all smartphones looked like clones of the Blackberry. Less than three years later, an awful lot of smartphones now look like clones of the iPhone instead. With these four products, Apple drove the evolution of three industries: PCs, portable media players, and smartphones. All four products were smashing successes despite all the doom and gloom from both professional and armchair tech critics. Now, with the introduction of the iPad, Apple is aiming at a new industry: ultraportable computers. For the past month and a half, at least half of everyone paying attention to the iPad has laughed at it, pointed out its shortcomings, and predicted its failure. My prediction? A year from now, we're going to have a very long list of misguided iPad quotes to point and laugh at.TUAWDon't trust the critics: Four Apple products they thought would fail originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments iPhone - Apple - iPod - IPod Touch - Microsoft

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