Tension Software releases Url Extractor X 3.0 for Mac OS X

Posted by Dennis SellersTension Software has released Url Extractor X 3.0. Url Extractor X is a Mac OS X app for extracting emails address and generic URLs from files on the HD or directly from the web using a list of “starting” web addresses and working unattended after the startup.

Posted by Dennis SellersTension Software has released Url Extractor X 3.0. Url Extractor X is a Mac OS X app for extracting emails address and generic URLs from files on the HD or directly from the web using a list of “starting” web addresses and working unattended after the startup.

  • URL Extractor update adds Adjustable Server Timeout

    Posted by Dennis SellersTension Software has released URL Extractor X 3.1. Url Extractor X is a Mac OS X app for extracting emails address and generic URLs from files on the HD or directly from the web using a list of “starting” web addresses and working unattended after the startup.

  • Url Extractor X for Mac OS X gets more preference options

    Posted by Dennis SellersTension Software has released Url Extractor X 3.0.1. Url Extractor X is a Mac OS X app for extracting emails address and generic URLs from files on the HD or directly from the web using a list of “starting” web addresses and working unattended after the startup.

  • Tension Software announces the release of Url Extractor X 2.0

    Posted by Dave MertenTension Software announces the release of Url Extractor X 2.0. Url Extractor X is a Cocoa Native application to extract emails address and generic URLs from files on the HD or directly from the web using a list of 'starting' web addresses and working unattended after the startup. Url Extractor...

  • 50 Common Mac Problems Solved

    We present the Ultimate Mac Troubleshooting Guide, so you can banish the peskiest problems once and for all.    Mac problems? Isn’t that an oxymoron? If you just switched to the Mac from Windows, you might be thinking that you accidentally picked up one of your old PC magazines--and, by the way, we’ve got solutions to the seven most common problems switchers encounter, too. If you’re a longtime Mac user, you could even be wondering where we get off accusing the Mac platform of being problematic.Using a Mac is generally painless and trouble free, but things can go wrong. Usually they’re not catastrophic (for solutions to true Mac disasters, click here). Sometimes the things that go wrong are those little annoying things that you just shrug off--over and over, until you finally have to deal with them.We’re here to help you tackle the 50 most common problems in eight different categories, once and for all. If your problem isn’t covered here, email us at ask@maclife.com, and we’ll try to solve it in a future issue. General Mac Problems The Mac OS is, fundamentally, as trouble-free as operating systems get. But nothing's perfect. Here's what to do when you hit a snag.1. I want a tabbed finder.Download the incredibly versatile Path Finder ($40, www.cocoatech.com), which gives you all sorts of features that are missing from the Finder, such as tabs, stacks, bookmarks, and panes. Sounds like fun to us!Now THIS is the Finder we've always dreamed of. Thanks, Path Finder!2. I can't print anymore.This could be caused by a variety of different issues relating to your printer hardware or printer drivers, so you may need to contact the printer manufacturer for more help. But if your Mac is causing the problem, it’s always a good idea to reset your entire printing system by going into your Print & Fax System Preference, right-clicking in the printer list, and choosing Reset Printing System.3. I travel all over town with my MacBook, and I’m sick of reconfiguring my settings every time I show up at a location I’ve been to before. Why can’t my Mac remember various location settings for me--my default printer, mounted servers, iChat screen name, Bluetooth settings, everything? Try NetworkLocation ($29, www.networklocationapp.com), which can perform dozens of actions on your Mac whenever you switch to a new location. Best of all, its AutoLocate feature will determine where you are, using the same SkyHook Wireless Wi-Fi Positioning System that your iPhone uses, and it will automatically change all of your settings for you. If you frequently switch physical locations, NetworkLocation can save you both time and headaches changing your Mac's settings. 4. I forgot my OS X password.After retyping your password very carefully at least twice to make sure you just didn’t mistype it, you’ll need to haul out your OS X install disk, insert it into your Mac and restart holding down the C button. After selecting your language of choice, in the menubar, select Utilities > Reset Password. Follow the directions and there you go. Just try not to get a lobotomy after resetting it!5. My CD or DVD is stuck in the optical drive and won’t come out when I press Eject.After holding down the eject button for several seconds to no avail, restart your Mac and hold down the primary button on your mouse--the trackpad button will work as well if you’re on a MacBook--and during startup the disk should eject.6. My Mac is not recognizing devices plugged in to one of my USB ports.First, make sure your Mac’s firmware is up to date--check Software Update and the Apple Support Downloads page (support.apple.com/downloads/) and install any firmware updates you find for your machine.If nothing happens, turn off your Mac, unplug the power cable, disconnect all peripherals, and let it sit for five minutes. Plug it back in, reconnect the keyboard and mouse, turn it back on, and try the USB ports again.Check the Support Downloads page for firmware updates for your Mac.If they’re still unresponsive, you will need to reset the PRAM (parameter RAM) and NVRAM (nonvolatile RAM), which stores some system and device settings that your Mac accesses on startup. Shut your Mac down. Then position your fingers above the Command, Option, P, and R keys on your keyboard. Turn the Mac on, then immediately press and hold those four keys before you see the gray screen. Keep them pressed until the Mac restarts again and you hear the startup chime for the second time. Then let ’em go. When your Mac is finished starting up, check those pesky USB ports.If they’re still not behaving, there’s one more thing you can try before making a Genius Bar appointment: resetting the SMC, or system management controller. Directions for resetting the SMC on your MacBook Pro are found at support.apple.com/kb/HT1411. Instructions for all other Macs are linked from support.apple.com/kb/HT1894. In Search Of...Search Solutions Leopard makes finding files and data on your Mac relatively trouble-free, but when it comes to search, there are improvements and tricks you can apply to make it even better. Here are two solutions to common search problems we hear about from a fair number of Mac users. 7. My Spotlight results have stopped working reliably.If it’s a single non-Apple program that isn’t showing up properly in your Spotlight results, try turning off and on the Spotlight indexing in that particular app.If you’re still getting Spotlight results for an app that you got rid of a while ago, you may not have completely deleted all of the data or databases that are associated with that program.Spotless gives you a nice GUI for managing, deleting, and rebuilding your Spotlight indexes.If it’s an Apple program--or your entire Mac--that isn’t working properly in Spotlight, try re-indexing your whole hard drive by going into the Spotlight System Preference, clicking on the Privacy tab, then dragging your hard drive into the list. Wait a moment, and then remove your hard drive from the list again.If you’re still having problems, you may need to bring out the big guns by using Spotless ($17, www.fixamac.net), a Spotlight index-management tool that can help fix most Spotlight problems.8. I need more power, flexibility, and customizability with my Spotlight searches and Spotlight results.Get HoudahSpot ($25, www.houdah.com), which lets you create extremely detailed search requests and customize the results to your liking.HoudahSpot handles Spotlight searches with much more flexability than Apple's built-in Spotlight search.  3 Essential Utilities Three more Mac problems solved--before they happen! 9. Disk Warrior($100, www.alsoft.com) This is a great preventative maintenance tool for rebuilding your Mac's directory and keeping your mac running quickly and smoothly. It's also a great emergency tool for repairing disks that have missing files or will no longer mount.10. Cocktail($15, www.maintain.se/cocktail/index.php). This general all-purpose utility will clean the caches on your machine, run the UNIX maintenance scripts, unlock hidden features of your Mac, and much more.11. SuperDuper($28, www.shirt-pocket.com). This disk cloning utility is great for backing up or transferring all the data on your entire computer to a fully bootable state. Next Page: Email and Web Problems... Email and Web Problems  We know you spend most of your time in front of a Mac online or pounding out email. Here's how to answer when trouble comes knocking. 12. I use a webmail client to check email, but every time I click on an email link, it launches Apple Mail instead.You can set up Apple Mail to access your webmail account using IMAP or POP (check with your webmail provider for instructions on how to do this; some charge a fee for this service), or you can install the program Webmailer (free, www.belkadan.com/webmailer), which lets you set any webmail site as your default email program.We set up Webmailer to take us to Yahoo's webmail system whenever we click on an email link.If you use Gmail, you have a few additional choices: You can install Google Notifier (free, toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper) and set that to your default email client in Mail’s preferences. Or you can use the outstanding Mailplane ($25, www.mailplaneapp.com), which provides many more features than the Gmail website.13. I can receive but not send email messages.Outgoing email messages are typically sent over the Internet using TCP port numbers 25, 465, or 587. However, in an effort to reduce spam, some ISPs and firewalls are set up to severely restrict the use of those ports. For example, AT&T is notorious for blocking port 25 for its DSL customers, unless you’re sending email with the AT&T email address assigned to your DSL modem. If you’re using AT&T (or another service provider that has similar restrictions), call the technical support number and request that they unblock port 25 for you. If you don’t control the Internet access where you are located, contact your email host to see if they have an alternate port that you can send email on. You can specify alternate port numbers in your email app’s account settings. If all else fails, you should be able to send email through your webmail system until you can physically get yourself to a different location that has no restrictions.Our Web-hosting company, hostbaby.com, allows us to send email messages over alternate port 2525, which typically bypasses any firewall restrictions that have been put in place.14. When I reply to or forward an email, the original message isn't entirely quoted in my reply--sometimes just the header and a few characters are quoted.If you used your mouse to highlight some text in the original email, and then you clicked on forward or reply, only the words that you selected will be quoted in your new email. To override this behavior in Mail (it can’t be overridden in Entourage), go into Mail’s Preferences, click on the Composing button, and you can set it to include all of the original message. If the problem still happens after this, your Mail preferences might be corrupt. Quit Mail, and trash the file located at yourhomefolder/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist. Also try upgrading to Snow Leopard, which makes Mail more reliable in general.The Composing preference in Mail ensures that your replies and forwards will always quote the original email message in their entirety.15. I want to send an email later, not now.Each email client handles this slightly differently.In Entourage, choose Message > Send Message Later or click on the Send Later button. (In Entourage 2008, you’ll need to add the Send Later button to your toolbar by choosing View > Customize Toolbar from any outgoing message.) Your messages will queue up in your outbox, and then you can send them all at once by creating an Entourage schedule (Tools > Schedules) or by clicking the Send & Receive button.In Thunderbird, choose File > Send Later. Your messages will queue up in the Unsent folder until you choose File > Send Unsent Messages.The Send Later Extension lets you schedule your outgoing messages in Thunderbird.The Send Later Extension for Thunderbird (free, www.unsignedbyte.com/?page_id=4) lets you schedule an exact date and time in the future to send your message.Surprisingly, Mail provides no ability to send messages later. You could take all your accounts offline (Mailbox > Take All Accounts Offline) before clicking on the Send button, in which case your messages disappear until you quit and relaunch Mail to find a temporary outbox with your messages sitting in them. Or, to schedule emails for a later delivery time that you specify, install the Schedule Delivery script which is a part of Mail Scripts (donations requested, homepage.mac.com/aamann/).Finally, LetterMeLater (free, www.lettermelater.com) offers another way to schedule emails to be sent at a later time.16. I have multiple folders entitled Drafts, Sent, Junk, or Trash for my IMAP email account.Setting up an IMAP account can be a little tricky. After typing your valid account settings into your email program, there are two additional steps:First, you’ll need to set the proper IMAP path prefix (sometimes called the “root folder” or IMAP server directory) in your account settings. For example, Gmail’s IMAP Path Prefix is [Gmail].Defining your IMAP server's root folder is an often-forgotten step when setting up an IMAP email account.In Entourage, you set this on the Options tab of your IMAP’s account settings. In Thunderbird, click the Advanced button on the Server Settings tab. In Mail, this is on the Advanced tab of your IMAP’s account settings.Then you’ll need to designate which folders on the server should be used for storing your drafts, sent messages, trash, and junk. In Entourage, you set this on the Advanced tab of your IMAP’s account settings. In Thunderbird, this is done in the Copies & Folders section of your account settings. In Mail, go out to your main viewer window and select a folder on the server (in the left-hand margin, underneath the IMAP account name), then choose Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For.17. Whenever I address an outgoing email, I get unwanted email addresses for people who aren't in my address book.Most email clients keep track of addresses that you’ve emailed to in the past and will suggest those addresses to you in the future when you start to type the same characters. You can turn off this feature in Entourage and Thunderbird by going into their preferences. In Entourage, this is found on the Compose tab. In Thunderbird, this is on the Composition > Addressing tab. You can’t turn off this feature in Mail, but you can clear the list from time-to-time by selecting Window > Previous Recipients, selecting the names and clicking Remove from List.In Mail, you have complete control over your Previous Recipients list.18. When I email long Web links to others, they sometimes get broken up onto multiple lines and don't work correctly.Try putting angle brackets () around long URLs to help them travel safely across the Internet without “breaking.” Or you turn to TinyURL (free, www.tinyurl.com), which will turn those long URLs into, well, tiny URLs!19. I wish Safari's built-in search field worked with more websites than just Google.You may want to switch to Firefox, which has the built-in ability to customize its search field with any number of search engines that you specify. Otherwise, check out the Safari plug-ins Saft ($12, haoli.dnsalias.com) or Glims (free, machangout.com), both of which let you customize Safari’s Google search field. And one of our favorite utilities, iSeek ($15, www.ambrosiasw.com) lets you add a global customizable search field to your Mac’s menubar that works with any Web browser.iSeek places a fully customizable search field in our menubar at all times.20. I want to filter inappropriate websites so my kids can't access them.Although Mac OS X has built-in parental controls that you can turn on for individual accounts, you can gain more control by purchasing software like ContentBarrier ($50, www.intego.com) or Net Nanny ($39.99 a year, www.netnanny.com). Even better, we’ve discovered that one of the quickest, easiest, and most effective ways of filtering all the computers in your entire household is to switch your DNS servers to the free OpenDNS servers (free, www.opendns.com).ContentBarrier is one of many options you have for blocking websites on your Mac. 21. My Internet connection is slow.That’s a tricky one. A sluggish Net connection could be caused by any number of things, so here are a few troubleshooting tips to start with:Try resetting Safari (Safari > Reset Safari). Then, try a different Web browser to see if the problem happens there as well. You may also want to uninstall any Internet plug-ins that you have installed recently.Next, check your upload and download speeds at www.speakeasy.net/speedtest and see if you’re getting the speeds you’re paying for. If not, try power cycling both your modem and router, such as your Airport Extreme. Turn off or unplug the device, let it sit powered off for several minutes, then plug it in or switch it on again.Our latest speed test from Speakeasy.net shows us that we're not currently getting the full upload speeds for which we've been paying the big bucks!If these methods don’t address the slowdown, try plugging your modem directly into your Mac using an Ethernet cable to see if the problem goes away. If so, your router may be the problem. If you’re using an Airport Extreme or Airport Express, launch Airport Utility to see if there is a firmware upgrade available. If so, install the firmware upgrade and see if that helps.If not, your Mac could be the problem--you may need to perform an Archive and Install of your operating system, which is one of your options on the Mac OS X Leopard Installation DVD.And it’s always possible that your modem or Internet line is the problem too, in which case you should call your ISP’s technical support number. Next Page: Photo and Office/iWork Problems... Photo Problems These solutions to common photo issues will make you want to say "cheese." 22. I need to quickly resize an image and make some color corrections to it, but I can't afford Photoshop and don't really want to learn how to use it.Preview has the built-in ability to resize images and adjust colors. Open up your image in Preview and select Tools > Adjust Size or Adjust Color.This image-size adjustment dialog box is from Preview, not Photoshop!23. I want to email photos from iPhoto through my webmail account by clicking on iPhoto's Email button.Even if you’ve installed Webmailer, as mentioned in problem #12, the email button in iPhoto will only work with four email clients: AOL, Eudora, Entourage, and Mail.However, if you use Gmail, you’re in luck because Mailplane ($25, www.mailplaneapp.com) installs an iPhoto plug-in that lets you click on iPhoto’s Email button and send your messages through your Gmail account.In any dialog box, you can activate QuickLook when browsing your iPhoto Library by selecting a photo and pressing the spacebar.Otherwise, go into your webmail program, and attach photos using the standard method. Leopard’s dialog boxes give you the ability to browse through your iPhoto library, and they even let you use QuickLook by clicking on a photo and pressing the spacebar.24. I want to use iPhoto '09 to export photos to Facebook, but there are too many problems with it.Forget about using iPhoto ’09’s poorly implemented Facebook “integration.” Instead, use the outstanding Facebook Exporter for iPhoto (free, developers.facebook.com/iphoto).Use Facebook Exporter for iPhoto to tag, add captions to, and upload your Facebook photos right from within iPhoto.25. I created a PDF file with lots of embedded photos in it, but now the file is way too large to email.Open up the large PDF file in Preview and select File > Save As. Where it says Quartz Filter, choose Reduce File Size, then click Save. VoilĂ ! You’ve now saved a much smaller version of your PDF file, which will be easier to email.Choose this Quartz Filter in Preview to reduce the size (and quality) of large PDF files so you can email them without choking your email server.For even more control over the resulting quality of PDF size reduction--and to batch-process multiple PDF files at once--try PDFshrink ($35, www.apago.com).If you still can’t get the file small enough for your needs, try a file-sending service such as YouSendIt (www.yousendit.com).26. Somebody emailed me a PDF file with lots of embedded photos in it, and I need to extract the photos from the file.File Juicer ($18, www.echoone.com) will extract images, sounds, and more from any filetype.File Juicer can extract all these types of files out of other files. Office/iWork Problems Work smarter not harder with these troubleshooting tips for common productivity apps. 27. I created an awesome slide show in Keynote, but I have to present it on a PC. I tried exporting it to Microsoft PowerPoint format, but I lost my transitions, effects, transparencies, gradients, and more--basically, all the cool stuff.Export your Keynote file to a QuickTime movie instead. As long as the PC has QuickTime installed on it (which it should, if it has iTunes installed), you’ll be able to play back your presentation with all of its awesomeness intact. If the PC doesn’t have QuickTime, download it for free from www.apple.com/quicktime.With the "Fixed Timing" option, we can set our QuickTime movie to automatically advance to the next slide on a regular interval.When you export your movie, you have several options for how it should advance from one slide to the next. For example, if you set it to manually advance, you simply have to press the spacebar on the PC to move to the next slide.28. I’ve included presenter notes (View > Show Presenter Notes) in a Keynote slide show, but when I play or rehearse the slide show, the notes don’t show up onscreen.In Keynote’s preferences, click on the Presenter Display button, and check the boxes for Notes and “Use alternate display to view presenter information.” Now your notes will show up when you play or rehearse your slide show.This checkbox lets you toggle between mirrored displays and dual displays.However, if you start seeing your notes on both your computer screen and the projector’s screen, your computer is set to mirrored (instead of dual) displays. You can toggle these display modes while the projector is connected to your Mac by launching System Preferences, choosing Display > Arrangement, and deselecting the Mirror Displays checkbox.29. I use Office 2008 to create Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files, but my Mac-using colleagues can’t open the files because they’re using Office 2004.TextEdit can open and edit Word 2008 files. And if your colleagues have iWork ’09 installed, they can work with all of your Office 2008 files in Pages, Numbers, or Keynote.Otherwise, you’ll need to save the file in an earlier file format. Choose File > Save As and select the format that corresponds to Office 97–2004. You can also set this older format as the default in your preferences for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.Choose the .doc format to avoid compatibility issues with people using earlier versions of Microsoft Word.Alternatively, your colleagues can install Microsoft’s Open XML File Format Converter (free, www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads), which will convert your Office 2008 files into a format that Office 2004 can read. Next Page: Syncing Problems...  Syncing Problems Data syncing can be particularly stressful since we need access to info anywhere these days. We've got solutions. 30. I want to sync some--but not all--of my iCal calendars across my Macs.Don’t use MobileMe to sync, which always synchronizes all of your calendars. Instead, use BusySync ($25, www.busymac.com) or BusyCal ($40, www.busymac.com), which both give you an incredible amount of syncing options.BusyMac's products are true champions when it comes to publishing and subscribing selected calendars without any dedicated servers.31. I want to synchronize my iCal calendars and Address Book on my Mac to Outlook on a PC.Sign up for MobileMe ($99 a year, www.apple.com), which will keep all of your Macs and PCs (and iPhones!) in sync with each other.Spanning Sync effortlessly syncs your calendars and contacts to Google.Or, you can use Google Calendar and Google Contacts as a conduit. On the Mac side, you’ll need Spanning Sync ($25/year or $65/one-time purchase, spanningsync.com). On the PC side, you’ll need Google Apps Sync ($50/year, tools.google.com/dlpage/gappssync).32. I keep getting duplicate entries on my iCal calendar.Sounds like you’re trying to sync your Entourage calendar with iCal. There’s a known bug with Entourage that causes repeating events to multiply out of control in iCal. We don’t know of any long-term solution at this time except to ditch Entourage’s calendar and stick to iCal for your calendaring needs. To do this, uncheck the box for syncing events in Entourage’s Preferences (on the Sync Services pane). To erase iCal dupes, try iCal Cleaner (free, www.busymac.com).33. I’m getting two of each calendar entry on my iPhone.You may be trying to sync your calendars through both iTunes and MobileMe. You’ll need to choose one method or the other, not both. If you’re syncing wirelessly through MobileMe, then go into your iPhone settings within iTunes and uncheck all of your calendars there.The exception to this rule is iCal’s Birthdays calendar (enabled in iCal’s preferences, this calendar pulls birthdays from your Address Book), which can only be synced through iTunes, so it must remain checked in iTunes.34. My U.S. Holidays and other Internet-subscribed iCal calendars are not syncing between my Mac and my iPhone.Any Internet-subscribed calendars must be resubscribed to directly from your iPhone. You can manually set up the server on your iPhone by going to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account > Other > Calendars.You must resubscribe to your iCal holiday calendars on your iPhone all over again.Or, you can automatically subscribe to a calendar by using Safari on your iPhone to choose from Apple’s extensive selection of calendars at www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/calendars.35. iTunes no longer launches automatically when I attach my iPod or iPhone to my computer.If your iPhone or iPod is very low on power or if the battery is fully depleted, it can take up to 10 minutes to appear under Devices in iTunes.Otherwise, you may have unchecked the box in iTunes for your device that says “Automatically sync when this iPhone/iPod is connected” or “Open iTunes when this iPod is attached.”You may have also removed the iTunesHelper application from your Login Items in your Account System Preferences, which is required to automatically launch iTunes. You can get this back by reinstalling iTunes (www.apple.com/itunes) or by manually dragging iTunesHelper into the Login Items. iTunesHelper can be found by right-clicking on iTunes in the Finder and choosing Show Package Contents, then going to Contents > Resources.36. I want to synchronize files between two computers.There are many different programs available to help you with this task, but our favorite is ChronoSync ($40, www.econtechnologies.com). ChronoSync can automatically mount remote servers, wake your local Mac from sleep, schedule your synchronizations, archive backup copies of your files before syncing, and even give you a list of proposed changes before it makes any of them.Synchronizing files between two different computers is as simple as drag-and-drop with ChronoSync.While you can use ChronoSync to synchronize to any type of volume or folder, if you specifically want to sync to another computer, you may want to additionally purchase ChronoAgent for an extra $10. ChronoAgent lets you communicate directly with a remote Mac faster than using AFP or SMB, and you gain full root access, so you can copy anything without any restrictions.37. I turned on MobileMe syncing on my iPhone, but nothing is syncing to my Mac or Me.com.It’s possible that the MobileMe servers aren’t communicating properly with your iPhone. An Apple support rep recently admitted to us that this is an extremely common problem that MobileMe users may experience every few months until Apple increases the reliability of its MobileMe syncing servers. So you may want to keep these instructions handy for future reference.First, find out if MobileMe sees your iPhone at all. Activate Find My iPhone on your iPhone (Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > your me.com account > Find My iPhone). Then, from a computer (not your iPhone), go to your MobileMe account page at https://secure.me.com/yourusername. Click on Find My iPhone to see if the MobileMe website sees your phone. If not, try turning off your iPhone and turning it back on again. If the MobileMe site still doesn’t see your phone, try deleting your MobileMe account on your iPhone and re-creating it again.We feel like Big Brother is watching us with Find My iPhone's crosshairs centered directly on our house!Once Me.com sees your iPhone, try adding an event or a contact to your phone and see if the change shows up on your MobileMe calendar (www.me.com/calendar) or address book (www.me.com/contacts) within a few minutes.If not, you will probably have to reset all of your sync data on Me.com with information from your Mac’s iCal and Address Book. Make a mental note of any recent unsynced changes you’ve made on your iPhone, because you’re going to lose them in this process. Also, sign out of Me.com. Go into the MobileMe System Preference on your Mac, select the Sync tab, click on Advanced, and then click Reset Sync Data. Click on the right arrow so that you are replacing all sync info on MobileMe with “info from this computer.”Log back into Me.com and verify that it now has your current information for contacts and calendars. If not, you will have to reset the SyncServices database on your Mac. Apple has instructions on this process at support.apple.com/kb/TS1627.But before following those instructions, be sure to do two things on your Mac: First, repair your permissions using Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities), and, second, repair your keychain using Keychain Access (in Disk Utility, pull down from the Keychain Access menu and select Keychain First Aid). After that, try syncing again from the MobileMe System Preference pane.This is how it should look when you're about to overwrite information on the MobileMe website with information from your Mac.Once Me.com has your current information, you are ready to go back to your iPhone. On your iPhone, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data. Turn Push off, then completely turn off your phone for 30 seconds. Turn your phone back on and re-enable push. Then, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > your Me.com account and turn off and on each one of the sliders for the information that you’re trying to sync (Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, etc).Wait several minutes, and hopefully all your current information will reappear in your calendar and contacts on your iPhone.If not, you will probably need to have a live chat with a MobileMe support agent. Go to www.apple.com/support/mobileme. Choose any of the troubleshooting options underneath Syncing with MobileMe in the left-hand margin, and a Chat Now button will appear. Next Page: Video, Music, and Backup Problems...  Video Problems These tips address problems you might encounter trying to play video files on your Mac. 38. I’m trying to use my Apple Remote on my Mac to watch movies through Front Row, but the other computers in the room--along with my Apple TV--are inadvertently responding to my remote’s button presses.You need to pair each one of your Apple Remotes to a particular device. Apple has instructions on how to do this at support.apple.com/kb/HT1619.39. Sometimes I can't play Web videos.Out of the box, your Mac can only play Flash and QuickTime videos. To play other video formats, you’ll need to install one or more of the following free apps:>> Flip4Mac Windows Media Components for QuickTime (www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx)>> Perian (www.perian.org)>> Microsoft Silverlight (www.microsoft.com/silverlight/)>> RealPlayer (www.real.com)>> VLC (www.videolan.org)40. I want to convert video files to other formats, particularly those that will work on my iPod or iPhone.To convert your video files into many different formats--including iPhone and iPod compatible formats--try Video Monkey (free, videomonkey.org), VideoDrive (7.99 euros, www.aroona.net), or CosmoPod (8.90 euros, www.cocoamug.com). To convert DVDs, try HandBrake (free, www.handbrake.fr).41. I want to download a Flash video from the Web.There’s a little-known trick in Safari that lets you download Flash videos that are embedded in webpages. Bring up the Activity Viewer (Window > Activity) and look for a file that appears that it may be your video file, perhaps based on its large size or the fact that it is so large that it is still loading. When it‘s finished loading, hold down the Option key and double-click on the video file. Safari will download the file into your Downloads folder for you, and you can monitor the progress through the Downloads window.Little-known Safari secret: You can download Flash vids, like Funny or Die's famous "The Landlord" starring Will Ferrell, to your Desktop to watch at your leisure.If you’d like an easier way to download Flash videos, try TubeTV (donations requested, www.chimoosoft.com), Videobox ($15, www.tastyapps.com), or TubeSock ($15, www.stinkbot.com).42. I want to download a QuickTime video from the Web to my Mac, so I can watch it later.If you’ve purchased QuickTime Pro ($30, www.apple.com/quicktime), you can download many QuickTime videos right from the Web by clicking on the triangle in the lower right-hand corner of the video and choosing Save As QuickTime Movie.However, some QuickTime videos, including those on Apple’s website, don’t let you download them directly. To download these devious videos--with or without QuickTime Pro--view the source of the webpage in Safari (View > View Source) or Firefox (View > Page Source). Do a search for .mov (the file extension for QuickTime videos) to find the full URL of the video file. When you find it, copy the entire URL of the video file. Then, launch QuickTime Player on your Mac and select File > Open URL and paste in the URL. Now you can save the video file onto your computer.43. I bought an external USB webcam, but my Mac laptop isn’t recognizing it.If your Mac is running Mac OS 10.4.11 or later, it can recognize almost any USB webcam on the market, usually without installing any drivers.If you’re running the latest version of OS X but still having problems, the iUSBCam (www.ecamm.com/mac/iusbcam) and macam (webcam-osx.sourceforge.net) websites provide helpful tips and driver downloads.Note that Mac programs like iChat and Skype will first try to use your built-in internal camera before using any external webcams. To change this, you’ll need to go into the preferences of those programs to change your video input source.If you’re unsuccessfully trying to use your external webcam in Photo Booth, you have to switch back to the internal camera in iChat’s preferences before launching Photo Booth. Music Problems How to keep rocking in the free world. 44. I want to make iPhone ringtones from a song that I didn’t purchase (or isn’t available for purchase) from the iTunes Store.If you have a track in iTunes that you own on CD and that you’ve ripped to iTunes, you can make a ringtone from it for free in GarageBand ’09. Click here for instructions and scroll down to “Roll Your Own iPhone Ringtones,” which also provides instructions for doing the same thing in QuickTime Pro).45. My iTunes library is full of duplicates.For smaller libraries, use iTunes’ Show Duplicates feature (File > Show Duplicates) and manually remove the extra files. iTunes only matches on Artist and Title information though, so be careful not to delete legit alternate versions of tracks--live versions, for example. For better duplicate control, try Dupin or some of the iTunes scripts available at www.dougscripts.com.46. One of the rubber tips from a pair of third-party earbuds got stuck in my ear--help!Believe it or not, this has happened to us too--more than once. We recommend keeping a pair of tweezers handy, just in case a tip come off in your ear canal, which can sometimes happen if you pull the ’bud out too quickly. It’s happened to two Mac|Life editors, both of whom agree that having something small and unreachable lodged in your ear can be pretty traumatic.47. My iTunes library is spread across multiple Macs. How can I keep two iTunes libraries synchronized?If all you want to do is listen to iTunes music housed on another local Mac (i.e. connected to the local network), just turn on iTunes’ sharing feature (Preferences > Sharing and check “Look for shared libraries”). To share your own tracks, also check “Share my library on my local network.” You can also store libraries on a network drive that supports iTunes sharing, to share tunes without needing another Mac up and running all the time. To keep two libraries in step for syncing iPods, use a utility like TuneRanger ($29.99, my.smithmicro.com) or SuperSync ($29, www.supersync.com).You don't have to share all your iTunes content--and you can password-protect it if you want, too. Backup Problems Don't tell us you don't back up--especially since Time Machine makes it so easy! Here's what to do when you run into problems. 48. I want to restore a file from a Time Machine backup of a different Mac or an older backup of my main Mac that Time Machine no longer recognizes (due to a new backup drive, a new logic board, or a new internal hard drive).You can restore any Time Machine backup onto any Mac, if you know a few tricks involved with restoring.The first one is related to an odd decision by Apple: You can only browse other Time Machine volumes by adding the Time Machine icon to your dock, then right-clicking on the icon and selecting Browse Other Time Machine Disks.There's our hidden option to browse other Time Machine disks!But even if you do that, it won’t see your Time Capsule or other external Time Machine drives, even if they’re mounted on your Desktop. In Finder, you actually have to manually choose the .sparsebundle file that represents the computer that was backed up, double-click on this file, let it mount on your Desktop, and then Time Machine will let you choose the resulting mounted disk image to restore from.49. Time Machine is giving me an error message that’s too vague for me to interpret.The programs TM Error Logger (donations requested, www.carnationsoftware.com) and Time Machine Buddy (free, www.bluedog.com.au) can help you interpret what has gone wrong with your Time Machine backup.50. I’d like Time Machine to back up to multiple external hard drives, so I can keep one backup drive offsite and one backup drive onsite.Time Machine can correctly keep track of backups on multiple external hard drives. Just give your hard drives different names, and whenever you connect the other drive, you’ll need to manually make a trip to Time Machine’s System Preference and change the disk there. 

  • Will Google's Android Play DOS to Apple's iPhone?

    Daniel Eran Dilger Today's broad array of smartphone operating system contenders are offering lots of potential answers to a problem that only requires one. It appears the market has two options ahead: either pool generic hardware makers behind a single operating system and deliver a smartphone marketplace that resembles the Windows PC market, or watch them fall to a dominant leader and have a smartphone market that resembles Apple's iPod ecosystem. This decision isn't going to be made by a class of intellectual elite, or by government mandate. it's going to be made by the market itself. Here are the factors that will influence the outcome, either marginalizing Apple's iPhone into a niche as the company has twice experienced previously at the hands of DOS in 1981 and Windows in 1991, or positioning it as the dominant leader as Apple has achieved for itself with the iPod since 2001. The third segment in this series looks at Google's Android and the Open Handset Alliance as a possible “DOS-attack” against Apple's iPhone. Subsequent segments will look at Nokia's newly opened Symbian and other mobile contenders challenging the iPhone. Will the iPhone Meet its Match from a Modern Day DOS? Will Windows Mobile Play DOS to Apple’s iPhone? Will Google's Android Play DOS to Apple's iPhone? Will Symbian Play DOS to Apple's iPhone? Google Acquires Android. In 2005, Google purchased a startup named Android, which had been in business for nearly two years. The secretive startup was known only to be working on software for mobile phones. It was being run by a who's who of mobile industry veterans, including Andy Rubin, the founder of Danger. Rubin had earlier worked at WebTV along with Chris White and Andy McFadden, both of whom had also joined Android. Richard Miner of Orange and Nick Sears of Tmobile also brought their mobile provider experience to Android. At the time of the acquisition, Google didn't announce any plans for Android and instead only told BusinessWeek, “We acquired Android because of the talented engineers and great technology. We're thrilled to have them here.” It appeared that Google was only going to be expanding its search services for mobile phone users, along the lines of the Google SMS answer system it had recently released. Google Buys Android for Its Mobile Arsenal - BusinessWeek Windows XP Media Center Edition vs Apple TV: The Fall of WebTV The GPhone Myth. As reports began to leak out about talks between Google and hardware makers throughout 2007, rumors began to fly about “the GPhone,” a competitive offering that was supposed to take on the iPhone. Some phone enthusiasts hoped Google would jump in to rescue the struggling OpenMoko project and turn it into a viable project that could attack Apple's new smartphone. In October 2007, I printed the Great Google GPhone Myth, taking apart the idea that Google would be directly competing against the iPhone, and describing that Google was really working on a free alternative to Windows Mobile as a conduit for getting its search and related services on a broader variety of mobiles. Google's services were already on the iPhone. In November, Google played its hand: it had organized a consortium of companies called the Open Handset Alliance to develop open standards for mobiles. The first product from the group would be Android, a mobile operating system built on the Linux kernel. Google wasn't getting into the phone handset business at all; it was only making sure that its mobile search products would not risk being marginalized by the threat of Windows Mobile on phones in the same way Microsoft had been working to leverage its PC monopoly to push Google search off the Windows desktop. The Great Google gPhone Myth Introducing Android: Leader of Linux. Two weeks later, Google released an early version of the Android software. On top of a Linux kernel, Android uses a specialized version of a Java Virtual Machine that takes Java language code and turns it into what Google calls “Dalvik bytecode” rather than Java bytecode as a standard JVM would. This allows Google to leverage existing and familiar Java language tools without paying Sun for a Java license. Like Mac OS X and its fraternal iPhone OS, Android includes a variety of open source libraries, including SQLite and WebKit. On top of that, Google developed a series of frameworks that handle the tasks Cocoa Touch does on the iPhone. Android also bundles a set of applications. While Apple adapted its existing Mac OS X to work in a mobile environment to create the iPhone OS, Android is more like a customized Java environment running on a specialized mobile Linux variant: elements of maturity in an otherwise experimental new platform. What is Android? -Google Android was by no means the first mobile OS using Linux. Both Palm and its amputated ACCESS software arm have Linux-based mobile platforms. Nokia has Maemo, which it uses in its Internet Tablets, and also recently acquired Trolltech and its Qtopia mobile Linux platform. Motorola has teamed up with MontaVista Software to use its Mobilinux. Intel created the Moblin project for mobile Linux, aimed at Internet devices. Google's OHA also isn't the first consortium to attempt to standardize a mobile Linux platform. The OSDL started the Mobile Linux Initiative to define requirements for hardware; the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF) then worked to define various phone profiles aimed at the Japanese market; the Linux Phone Standard (LiPS) Forum tried to do the same thing in Europe. In 2007, LiPS was folded into the new LiMo Foundation, along with the OSDL. All of these committees have had some overlap and some complementary features. Several of Google's OHA partners are also LiMo members, including NTT DoCoMo, Wind River, and Motorola. So why didn't Google just join LiMo? “LiMo, very candidly, wasn't moving fast enough,” OHA board member John Bruggeman told CNET. Google hopes to herd the Linux cats into a progressive, structured platform that can battle against Symbian and Windows Mobile to succeed as the new DOS of smartphones. Will Google fracture or unify mobile Linux? The Presumption of the Necessity of DOS. The previous segment examining Windows Mobile pointed out how the PC industry as a whole assumed that Microsoft's desktop Windows monopoly would easily take over dominance in the MP3 player market, pushing Apple into a niche position. This was expected because DOS had pushed Apple's early computers into a reduced role starting in 1981, and Microsoft had repeated this again in 1991 when the DOS world migrated to Windows, effectively pruning Apple's Macintosh into a Bonsai platform. The inability of one company to dominate any product category has been frequently repeated by PC industry pundits as a given, despite the fact that history is full of examples of this happening. Sony dominated personal music players for two decades under the Walkman brand even while equally large competitors tried to push it from this position; Nintendo has similarly owned handheld gaming despite ill-fated efforts to grab a piece of its pie by products running a generic platform such as Microsoft's WinCE (Gizmondo), Linux (GP32), and Symbian (N-Gage). In fact, outside of the Windows/DOS PC, there are actually few examples of a generic platform taking over an industry. Nearly every other consumer-facing product uses proprietary platforms: car makers, stereo equipment, appliances and so on typically all use designs custom to their maker. The paradox of the Windows PC market has been that Microsoft's broadly licensed software supposedly saves hardware makers from investing in software development while ensuring compatibility, when in reality it adds significant costs to PC makers while limiting their ability to differentiate themselves. That explains why PC makers have been perpetually merging together and going out of business while Microosft has rolled in money over the last two decades. Parallel efforts to copy Microsoft in broadly licensing an operating system have regularly failed: IBM's OS/2, Apple's Mac OS, Palm's PDA OS, even Microsoft's own efforts to duplicate Windows dominance in other markets, from copy machines to PDAs to smartphones to SPOT watches to music players. The closest copy may be Symbian, but its customers are partners, not simply consumers of a generic third party's operating system as Windows licensees are. That indicates it is not necessary to duplicate the dominance exercised by Microsoft over the PC industry in the smartphone market. Google's Android and Symbian exist more as technology sharing pacts among manufacturers, but both aspire to take Microsoft's DOS role among smartphones. However, the idea that Apple's iPhone must be dethroned by a modern-day DOS, whether Windows Mobile, Android, or Symbian, is not just debatable, but does not sync with the reality of more recent events. Apple's recent history of the iPod further refutes the idea that a software analog to Microsoft is needed. The iPod Emergence: Apple & Pixo vs IBM & Microsoft. Apple's iPod in 2001 made no effort to clone the DOS business model; it actually did the opposite. When Apple entered the market, there were a number of existing MP3 devices using custom software, hardware designs, and DRM codecs. The iPod used off the shelf components to deliver a custom MP3 player using third party software, but Apple also added its own technologies: easy to use sync with iTunes, a fast Firewire interface that made uploading music far faster than the prevailing USB 1.0, and an attractive industrial design. With the iPod, Apple played the role of IBM in 1981, using Pixo's embedded operating system to enter the market quickly, just as IBM had used DOS. The difference was that Apple didn't direct any market attention toward Pixo and added a lot of value on top of that core embedded OS. A modern day Compaq couldn't simply clone the hardware and license Pixo to run on it in order to compete against the iPod, because the iPod was much more than just generic hardware running Pixo software. As the iPod developed, Pixo's role diminished and was eventually displaced. Just like IBM, Apple jumped into a new market just as demand was beginning to explode. Apple made MP3 players far more attractive to a general audience by delivering greater playback capacity than most entry level devices offered, along with an ease of use that encouraged buyers to jump in at the higher end of the market. That left Apple with not only the lion's share of the market, but also by far the most profitable segments of the market. Two decades prior, IBM badly fumbled its play with the early PC and ended up irrelevant in the PC world by the late 80s, sideswiped by Microsoft's DOS and the cloners who were licensing it in parallel, notably Compaq and later HP and Dell. Steve Jobs had witnessed that happen, and was determined to not let it happen again to Apple. Rather than being manipulated by a software middleware vendor as IBM had, Apple worked to incrementally develop the iPod market itself. After consuming the hard drive-based player market, Apple took on the Flash RAM-based market with a tiny hard drive system used in the iPod Mini, and followed up with Flash-based devices of its own in the Nano and Shuffle. This allowed Apple to progressively serve an increasingly wider market, incrementally growing upon an established foundation. With the iPod, Apple became, in effect, an IBM with its own internal Microsoft. Microsoft's Failure Despite Features. In contrast, Microsoft entered the music player market by promoting music player hardware reference designs around WinCE. However, it was unable to ship a finished design until the iPod had become firmly established around 2005. Later branded as PlaysForSure, the devices were sold by various hardware makers and all purported to support the same DRM and the same music subscription services while also offering a broader array of hardware that presented video before the iPod did, supported wireless before the iPod, and so on. Despite these unique features, all of those PFS designs still failed. Microsoft blamed the failure of PFS upon its music store and hardware partners and decided to take Apple on itself in 2006. It relaunched a Toshiba PFS player as its own device under the Zune brand, adding WiFi music sharing features and a larger display than the current Pods had. It failed dramatically as well. Did Microsoft's attempts to float a new DOS among music players fail because of Apple's success, or due to Microsoft's own problems? The failure of the Zune, which followed the iPod model rather than the DOS model, seems to suggest that Microsoft itself was to blame. Consider too that Microsoft's Windows Mobile phones, which use the same underlying operating system as its failed PlaysForSure music players and the Zune, had similarly flopped even before Apple could release a charismatic phone equivalent to the iPod. Of course, when the iPhone was released, it hit Windows Mobile hardest. The iPhone made Windows Mobile Smartphones look ridiculous and underpowered, and made Windows Mobile Pocket PC phones look clumsy and awkward, despite the fact that they both supported a variety of features the iPhone didn't, including the ability to edit documents, capture video, send MMS, and so on. Simply adding on features did not enable Microsoft to compete against Apple. The only conclusion that can be drawn from all this is that competing against Apple requires more than just having a feature arsenal. Microsoft's failures in themselves do not necessarily mean that Google's Android will fail in its attempts to float its own smartphone platform. Why Microsoft’s Zune is Still Failing Microsoft’s Zune, Vista, and Windows Mobile 7 Strategy vs the iPhone Will Google Succeed where Microsoft Failed? Microsoft's demonstrated inability to successfully enter consumer markets for MP3 players and smartphones has given observers little faith that the company will somehow turn things around in late 2009 when its next generation of devices are expected to be released. However, prior to that the first fruits of Google's efforts to build its own smartphone operating environment will arrive. Will Google's Android take over Microsoft's crown as the “DOS vendor” among smartphones? Supporters of Google's Android project point to some parallels between Android for smartphones and Windows on the PC: Android will allow hardware makers to differentiate in ways that can offer features Apple can't (or doesn't want to); it should allow software developers to offer features Apple does not allow on the iPhone; it embraces open, hobbyist experimentation in ways that Apple currently isn't; and it opens the potential for content providers that Apple is not interested in allowing. Openness is Android's key competitive feature. Will all this openness allow Google to unseat the iPhone to become the primary platform developers want to participate in, and subsequently soak up the market for third party hardware makers that Windows Mobile serves? While Google currently has no market share due to the fact that no Android phones have yet shipped, it does have broad vocal support from a variety of the same kinds of hardware manufacturers that supported DOS and Windows and helped to make those platforms successful in the desktop PC market. HTC and Android. The first Android phone is expected to be the HTC Dream; Taiwan's HTC (High Tech Computer) also manufactures Palm's Treo Pro phone as well as many of the most visible Windows Mobile devices. In addition to models produced under its own name, HTC also sells Windows Mobile devices under the Dopod brand, as well as no-name phones branded by providers, such as AT&T, Orange, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, and others. HTC will also be building the XPERIA X1 Windows Mobile phone for Sony Ericsson. HTC was quick to throw its support behind Android despite its long term alliance with Windows Mobile. Why would it so enthusiastically support an unproven platform from a company that has no experience in consumer hardware platforms? One can only assume that HTC is not happy with the current state of Windows Mobile, and desperately wants another “DOS” to succeed where Microsoft's has so spectacularly failed. As an Original Design Manufacturer for Palm, HTC watched as Palm adopted Windows Mobile in place of the Palm OS and subsequently fell even deeper into crisis. Palm's only successful phone since has been its Palm OS-based Centro. HTC undoubtedly sees Android as its ticket to becoming the next Dell, but without a similar dependance upon Microsoft. Android for mobile phones is essentially playing the role of Linux for PCs, except that it has the backing of a major company behind it. Can Android Take on the iPhone with Openness as its Feature? As great as this sounds, it's important to consider that Linux on the desktop has made no significant progress in eating into Windows dominance after a decade of trying. Being open, free, flexible, and decentralized hasn't been enough of an advantage to get consumers to migrate from Windows to Linux in any fraction of significance. Similarly, in the music business, Linux-based MP3 players have had no impact on the iPod, despite offering more features, flexibility, support for additional codecs, and so on. In the mobile phone area, Linux enjoys a sizable portion of the smartphone market, but this is almost entirely due to phones sold by Motorola in China, where the advantages of Linux' openness are void. Motorola's Linux phones offer nothing to users in terms of openness or flexibility, and are really no different in terms of features than other appliance 'feature phones' based upon closed operating systems. And again, a key problem with assaulting Apple in a feature war is that neither the iPod nor the iPhone became popular by being “highly featured.” They both delivered perhaps 80% of the functionality found in all other devices in the market. Rather than trying to match every feature and cater to every niche as Microsoft had with Windows Mobile, Apple's devices did a few things very well at launch, and incrementally developed into full featured devices that still lack some of the more unique features of their competitors. Further, in terms of openness, the demographic that embraces Linux' characteristic freedoms is not the same as the demographic that buys smartphones in quantity and then pays for data service. This is a critical fact to consider because a big part of the iPhone's success stems from the fact that it is being pushed by mobile providers who want to capture the cream of the market willing to pay a premium for data services. The Frankenphone. Combining the fractured aesthetic of HTC's Windows Mobile phone hardware with Android's software, based upon Linux' perpetually unfinished DIY openness and Google's Java-like development platform, will not result in a product similar to the iPhone. Instead, it will look a lot like phones that have already failed in the market. Apple's advantage comes from slick hardware designs with a close attention to detail, combined with software that purposely does less so that it can do what it does better. Even Apple's own conservative attempts to broaden its software capabilities with iPhone 2.0 have resulted in instability problems that can be blamed upon both Apple's early releases of its phone operating system and software from inexperienced third party developers new to the platform. Would the current frustrations with iPhone 2.0 be somehow mitigated by additional openness that also embraced all kinds of variables from different hardware makers with less quality control than Apple, a loose committee of additional cooks working to serve up operating system features targeted at every possible conceived need, and a wider third party software group with fewer constraints on illegal behaviors? The Failure of Open. While it is politically unpopular to criticize the well meaning efforts of open source contributors, the failure of Linux on the desktop, the failure of the vaporware Indrema game console, and the failure of the OpenMoko project to deliver a workable phone within a year of its deadline all underline the serious problems open development faces in the world of consumer oriented devices. Open has simply failed to deliver on its promises in the world of consumer hardware. OpenMoko was supposed to release its first mobile phone to consumers for $250 several months in advance of the iPhone. When the iPhone shipped, the group then announced new plans to get its phone out by the end of 2007. Instead, this spring the group announced new plans to move to an entirely different development platform, and ship its phone mid year for $400 with limited functionality and incomplete software outside of basic GSM phone features. Linux's notable successes, from Motorola's Linux phones to the Tivo DVR to Linksys Routers, have often come without any associated openness or freedom, and were instead delivered simply to provide their manufacturer with a free kernel to build upon. This indicates that while Linux may find its way into an increasing number of smartphones, it will likely not be accompanied by the glorious freedom of an open development environment Google has said it would offer with Android. Apple iPhone vs the FIC Neo1973 OpenMoko Linux Smartphone Can Google Succeed Where Open Has Previously Failed? Despite “openness” being Android's strongest competitive feature compared to Apple's iPhone, Google recently revealed that its wide-open development model is intentionally gravitating towards a closed association of top tier partners due to practical considerations. In July, Google accidentally sent out a notice that revealed that it had been seeding private SDK updates to only a subset of its contributors, angering those who believed that Android would be as open as Linux on the desktop or the OpenMoko project. Further, Google has restricted initial development to higher level APIs just as Apple did, further indicating that Google itself realizes that being wildly open to impress a minority of hobbyists will not result in the commercial success of its new platform. That serves to neuter Android's primary advantage over the iPhone. Without delivering on the premise of being wide open, Android is really just a less mature set of Java libraries used to create a specialized binary that runs on a Linux foundation. Unlike Apple's iPhone, Android phones won't have a slick user interface developed by professional artists, nor the iPhone's legacy of mature software development frameworks crafted over the last thirty years, nor the iPhone's tightly integrated hardware with award winning industrial design, nor its marketing power tied into the iPod and Apple's retail stores. Android won't be an open iPhone, it will only be a Windows Mobile phone with a better kernel that runs specialized Java software instead of Win32 or .NET code. Don't expect consumers to be impressed by that. The Biggest Missing Feature. There is one remaining factor that strangles to death any last remaining hope that Android might assassinate the iPhone and assume the crown of the “DOS of smartphones.” That is: Android delivers zero price advantage to consumers. In 1981 and 1991, consumers who wanted Apple computers faced the sticker shock of a somewhat arrogant price tag. Apple sold its computers, as it still does, at the higher end of the market, but there was simply far more range in prices available. In 1981, that meant the Apple II was $2600 and the new Apple III was $3500, even before you added a monitor. On the low end, Commodore sold its far less powerful, but “still a computer” Vic-20 for $300, while IBM entered the market with the IBM PC at $3000. Over the next few years, Apple focused on delivering additional sophistication at the same price, releasing the $10,000 Lisa and then the $2,500 Macintosh. IBM continued selling PCs in the same $3,000 to $10,000 range, but other DOS PC vendors began selling machines at prices that ranged as low as $1500. That left Apple with a roughly $1000 price premium over low end PCs. The products weren't really comparable, but consumers only saw the huge price difference. In 1991, Apple was still selling moderate to high-end Macintoshes for $3,800 to $10,000; the crippled Mac LC was $2500, and obsolete-at-birth Mac Classic ranged from $999 to $1500. Windows allowed PC makers to ship a functional $1500 PC and claim a rough approximation to Apple's $2500 entry level system, maintaining that apparent $1000 price premium. Today, pundits are lucky to find a Dell or HP system that is even a couple hundred dollars less than a comparable Mac. However, in the smartphone business, the iPhone 3G is now the same price, if not less, than generic competing phones on the market. Even more significant is the fact that the price of the phone hardware is nearly nothing compared to the cost of the service plan. This fact simply eases any price premium that could cause buyers to flock to a smartphone running a generic operating system over buying the iPhone 3G, regardless of whether it runs Windows Mobile or Android. 1990-1995: Planting Software Seeds Android Partners Have Already Failed. That same pricing principle similarly prevented buyers from considering many of the alternatives to the iPod. While Apple's original iPod models were more expensive than many of the first MP3 players on the market, they were price competitive with models offering similar features. By 2004, it was Apple who was undercutting MP3 competitors on price. Microsoft offered zero price advantage when it began selling the Zune, a major factor in its failure, but Microsoft simply couldn't out-price the iPod; it was already losing money offering the Zune at the same price as the iPod. Apple now has tremendous market power in buying RAM and other components that will prevent any competitors from being able to offer a huge discount over the iPhone's $199 price tag. Even if competitors were to give their phones away, they would only offer a $200 discount to users who would then still need to pay the same mobile fees to use the phone. Android's other partners, including Samsung and LG, have already failed to capture any significant market share in the music player market. Are they going to maintain their position as smartphone makers now that they face similar competition from Apple, its iPod ecosystem, its iTunes Music and Apps Store, Apple's retail store experience, and other factors that are pushing the iPhone? If they can, it is not obvious how partnering with Android will help. Other Problems for Android. Android was announced in early November 2007 and was followed with an early preview SDK within a couple weeks, a month ahead of Apple's initial announcement of the iPhone 2.0 SDK. However, between March and July 2008, Apple delivered nine progressive releases of its SDK, opened its App Store, and sold 60 million apps, raising $30 million to support iPhone software development in just the first month. It has since released three more SDK updates to developers related to iPhone 2.1, which is expected next month. Android just published its first open SDK beta update earlier this week, warning developers that “applications developed with it may not quite be compatible with devices running the final Android 1.0.” Additionally, Android still has no phones available. By the time the HTC Dream is expected to launch, Apple will have an installed base of around ten million iPhone (and iPod touch) users supporting software development through iTunes. The business model for selling Android apps is no better than that for selling jailbreak iPhone apps: there is no iTunes Apps Store to promote them, so users will have to track them down on their own. Android developers also have no real freedom that jailbreak iPhone developers lack. The only difference is that there are ten million iPhones to sell jailbreak apps to, and currently zero Android phones. If selling a jailbreak iPhone app sounds like more trouble than its worth, imagine trying to sell Android apps to a non-existant audience. Now add the official iPhone App Store into the mix, where publicity, promotion and profits are booming. What platform is going to have the most applications? How many users will flock to a smartphone platform with no apps? The wisdom of releasing a desirable phone and achieving a significant installed base before releasing an SDK makes a lot more sense in retrospect. Additionally, while Apple has a decade of experience in shipping regular updates to Mac OS X and its Xcode developer tools, Google has only shipped a random assortment of web-oriented SDKs (a number of which have been abandoned) as a tangent to its core business of selling advertisements. When the Android SDK 1.0 is finished later this year, developers will not only lack an installed base to sell their apps to, but will also have no high profile market for selling their apps in, and subsequently no financial incentive to develop applications that add value to the Android platform, just like Linux on the PC desktop. Around the same time, possibly within the next month, Apple will be shipping its second major OS release: iPhone 2.1. Apple will also be upgrading its entire user base to the new software so that developers will have a cohesive platform to target. This mirrors the efforts Apple has taken to upgrade its Mac OS X users to the same reference release. Mobile developers will be seeing money pouring in via iTunes while crickets chirp in the Android section of various mobile online stores. Apple’s iPhone Vs. Other Mobile Hardware Makers: 5 Revenue Engines Same Same, But Different: DOS Model Problems. Android developers will also have a series of other problems to manage. Like Windows Mobile, Android is intended to support everything, from BlackBerry-style keypad phones with a small touchscreen to the simple Windows Mobile Smartphone form factor lacking a touch screen to iPhone-like full size touch screens. Also like Windows Mobile, Android phone makers will have the option to leave off Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS location services, graphics hardware acceleration, and so on. Each Android phone will also have unique camera hardware, support for different video and audio codecs, and varied support for other differentiating proprietary services demanded by mobile operators. This will force developers to to make complex decisions regarding the lowest common denominator they choose to support. So while the iPhone will have a cohesive feature set, a managed software environment, and a functional market, Android will be a loose federation of hardware makers selling the same random features found on Windows Mobile today, with a chaotic development environment that lacks any central market for users or developers. And it will be run as an experiment by a company with no experience in consumer hardware or platform development. The Missing Tap. One specific example of the “DOS model problem” is that Android currently does not support multitouch. It's not touched on in the API, and Google quietly tap dances around its omission. Why no multitouch? Because multitouch screens are expensive, and most OHA hardware members are more interested in making a profit in a competitive phone market rather than impressing consumers as Apple did with the iPhone. Most existing smartphones, even those trying to directly rival the iPhone, use a stylus driven, pressure sensitive tap screen or a simpler, cheaper touch technology that lacks support for sensing multitouch. The iPhone's screen can actually sense up to five fingers at once, but the primary feature multitouch offers on the iPhone is the two fingered tapping and the pinching effects everyone associates with it. Android could certainly support multitouch if there were a demand for it, but that's the point: Google knows that its hardware partners are cheap and unlikely to put out hardware that actually competes with the iPhone. Instead of using expensive technologies that deliver clever yet largely invisible functionality, OHA members, just like PC makers, are far more likely to add flashy, impractical gadgety fluff that's cheap to tack on, such as slide out keyboards, neon tubes, and scratch and sniff stickers. That's how you impress gullible nerds on the cheap. Google itself is blowing smoke and erecting mirrors to distract from the reality that it being a “DOS vendor” means supporting bargain basement hardware from penny pinching duplicators. Android has been demonstrating some “wow” features such as a Street Maps app that pans around based on an internal compass in the demonstration phone. The problem is that that kind of thing only makes for a fun demo. Nobody needs to twirl around their phone in the air to see a view of the other side of the street, but everyone who has used an iPhone will wonder why they can't pinch to zoom out. Even worse, most Android phones aren't going to have a compass built into them, so Google is demonstrating features most Android users won't be able to use. That Sounds Like Microsoft… Google's design decisions are beginning to look a lot like Windows Vista; rather than actually working to make laptops boot faster, Microsoft came up with the idea of adding a small screen to the back of Vista laptops so users could check their email without having to wake the system up. But this was a stupid idea for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that most users just want a laptop that boots up quickly. Few laptops got the mini screen, but every user who tries Vista on their laptop will wonder why it doesn't boot up as fast as Mac OS X Leopard. In the same way, Google is advertising features for Android that most users won't ever see in their actual phones while ignoring things people will expect based on their exposure to the iPhone. Android is simply selecting the wrong features. Android will offer the advantages of supporting MMS, recording video, and the list of other features Windows Mobile already supplies. Those features didn't stop Apple from firing past Microsoft in the smartphone arena however, just as the Zune's highly touted WiFi and screen didn't phase iPod buyers. Incidentally, just months after the Zune, Apple had not only demonstrated a larger display but a higher definition multitouch screen, and not only WiFi, but functional WiFi that could be used to browse the web or check email. This suggests that Apple, with its faster release schedule, won't stay behind any of the leading features potentially offered by Android for very long. Android partners, however, will find it as difficult to catch up with Apple's unique features, just as Microsoft has been stymied to keep up with Mac OS X, the iPod, and the iPhone. The underlying reason: both Google and Microosft are tasked with maintaing support for a huge variety of hardware options demanded by all their partners. Apple has the unique circumstances to do only what it needs to do itself. Android in Windows Mobile's Shoes. Like Windows Mobile, Android faces a difficult market. In the US, it competes against the popular BlackBerry in corporate markets and the iPhone among consumers. Worldwide, it competes against entrenched market leader Nokia. The difference is that Google, unlike Microsoft, has no in. Windows Mobile was adopted by Windows-bound IT shops despite its weaknesses. Nobody has any preexisting reason to try an Android phone apart from hobbyists and open software enthusiasts, a demographic that has done little to move Linux on the PC desktop. Google also lacks Microsoft's installed base; it's starting from zero. The smartphone industry initially doubted Apple's chances of making much progress with the iPhone, despite the company having the Mac platform, the iPod, retail stores, platform development experience, marketing savvy, industrial design prowess, and so on. Google doesn't have any of those things. Mobile Providers vs Android. Apple also started with an exclusive partnership with AT&T, a three legged race that demanded effort from both. Google is hoping that hardware makers handle the hardware details and that mobile providers will be excited to sell its Android phones. While hardware makers such as HTC clearly appreciate having found a free alternative to Windows Mobile, it's not obvious why providers would be excited about Android, as it promises an openness that most mobile providers strongly oppose. AT&T took a big risk in getting behind the iPhone, as the phone encouraged users to use email rather than fee-based SMS and MMS, it supported WiFi for data access, and it bypassed AT&T's MEdia Net services to plug into iTunes instead. Verizon refused to parter with Apple and grant it those kinds of concessions. Is AT&T going to take a similar risk to partner with a phone that is not exclusive to it, and is Verizon now going to open its arms to support phones that do not exclusively support BREW, VCast and its other proprietary services? While Android may well eat into Microsoft's Windows Mobile business by stealing away its hardware makers, it seems unlikely that Android will ever serve as more than free alternative to Windows Mobile in a market where Windows Mobile is increasingly irrelevant. Android may have the dubious distinction of swallowing Microsoft's mobile business the same way Microsoft ate up the Palm OS, but even if it accomplishes that goal, Google will likely find itself unsustainably hungry immediately afterward. It will also find itself swimming in a shark tank of hungry rivals, including Nokia's Symbian, RIM's BlackBerry, and Apple's iPhone. Symbian is the final generic platform vying for the opportunity to play DOS in the smartphone market. The next article will examine Nokia's chances in its bid to match Microsoft's PC dominance in the mobile market while setting out in a new venture to copy Android's open software model. Did you like this article? Let me know. Comment here, in the Forum, or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast (oh wait, I have to fix that first). It's also cool to submit my articles to Digg, Reddit, or Slashdot where more people will see them. Consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks!

  • Apple Finally on Twitter?

    Although the iPhone and the Mac are extremely popular devices for using social media, Apple is one of the only major technology companies not to have a clear presence on Twitter or Facebook. A hint arose yesterday that Apple may finally be peering outside its walled garden. Apple Senior Vice President of iPhone Software Scott Forstall signed up for Twitter and has a “verified account” to show he is indeed the Scott Forstall from Apple. While Scott already has thousands of followers, he's currently only following Conan O'Brien, who recently tweeted “I found a huge design flaw in my new iPhone. People get angry when I talk on it during a funeral!” Behind the times While Apple makes the products that we all use to get involved in social media, the company itself is way behind the curve in this area. Although Apple provides marketing tweets from such accounts as iTunesTrailers and iTunesMusic, it has yet to use Twitter or Facebook to respond to customer concerns about Apple products. In sharp contrast to Apple, its U.S. partner for the iPhone, AT&T, has a great presence in social media. Tweet a problem to @attcustomercare and its crack team resolves the problem in a jiffy. Post on its Facebook wall and receive similar executive class service. Personally, they've solved my problems on more than one occasion. When people complain on Twitter about a surly Genius, or a botched online order, the voice of Apple is silent. Steve Jobs might respond to some of your select emails, but apparently if you tweet instead of write him directly, you won't be heard by Steve or for that matter anyone at Apple. Don't even think of making him your friend on Facebook or connecting with him on LinkedIn! Of course, Apple employees can be involved in social media on a personal level, although obviously they can't speak on Apple's behalf. Their reluctance to be involved in social media is atypical of the tech industry. Why has it taken so long? Apple likes having strict control over communication, with one voice and one venue for communication: Apple's PR department. Unlike other companies that encourage their executive staff and customer service personnel to go out and meet their customers and address their concerns, Apple stays away. This may simply be because Apple doesn't think it has to. It considers the Genius Bar and its Tech Support department to be the proper way of getting your concerns addressed. While Apple has lots of informal fans and followers on social media, Apple has yet to get involved in this international conversation, until perhaps today. Could Scott's Twitter account be a new method of damage control for Apple and possibly even help iPhone owners with problems? As “Antennagate” spun out of control, Steve Job's response “you are holding it wrong” conflicted with Apple's official statement that it's not a hardware problem, but a software issue. Thus it seems logical that the head of iPhone software might be the first official verified account from Apple. Why verify with Twitter unless you are going to speak on behalf of Apple? Imagine how different the problem might have been perceived if people weren't using social media like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs to amplify and broadcast their their concerns? People are shouting because it doesn't seem like Apple is listening. If Apple had been fully engaged in the world of social media, would Antennagate have reached the level it did? Possibly not. iPhone owners would feel the issues were being addressed and Apple was working on the problem. Not responding to your customers concerns except through random CEO emails and rare formal press releases is not the way to do public relations, unless of course you work for Toyota or BP. I encourage Scott and his team to step up to the plate and start addressing not just the antenna concerns, but the variety of other problems iPhones owners have. Alternatively, this could all be an elaborate hoax and a testament to user frustration that Apple isn't addressing their concerns. If you have a problem with your iPhone, tweet @forstall and you might just get a response. And if that doesn't work, you can simply follow my previous guide on getting satisfaction from Apple. So what should Scott's first tweet be? What will your first tweet to him be?

  • 15 Things We Might See at WWDC 2010

     After search giant Google hurled a barrage of not-so-subtle spears in Apple’s direction at the Google I/O developer conference, all eyes are now on the World Wide Developer Conference that Cupertino will be launching June 7 with a keynote from CEO Steve Jobs.While a fourth-generation iPhone is a given at this point after an absurd number of leaks in recent weeks, Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself promised an inquisitive e-mailer only a few days ago: “You won’t be disappointed.” So we put our thinking cap on and came up with this list of cool stuff we might see when WWDC 2010 kicks off June 7 and wraps up on June 11.Safari 5 (or maybe 4.5)We think Safari is still pretty great, even against more recent challengs from Google Chrome and Firefox 3.6. But with the Chrome browser finally out of beta this week, Apple may have to work harder to pound out Safari’s remaining limitations.Among them: No API for extensions, as noted this week by Daring Fireball’s own John Gruber after Google’s announcement that Chrome is now officially “stable.” That means that great third-party software like 1Password and Evernote has to resort to kludgy hacks to work intimately with Safari. Heck, even good ol’ Adobe Flash might work better with an API (stranger things have happened). Gruber also calls out Apple for not empowering Safari with a true ability to automatically reopen pages left open when the app was closed. Yes, please.New Mac Pros -- Finally!The poor Mac Pro has certainly gone neglected, with its last update more than a year ago. Worse yet, the desktop behemoth still carries a form factor borrowed from the Power Mac G5 before it -- and in computer years, that makes it a veritable dinosaur.Although we’ve heard plenty of rumors about Intel’s new six-core Core i7-980X processor landing in a refreshed Mac Pro as far back as January and February of this year, the summer has arrived and there’s still nothing official on the radar. Creative professionals are likely worried about Apple’s silence with regard to such new hardware, but that could all change with one presentation.Mac OS X 10.7Many developers are also rightfully worried that this year’s WWDC is too focused on iPhone OS, and many questions remain as to when Apple might shed some light on their intentions for Mac OS X 10.7. Granted, Snow Leopard 10.6 was released only last September, but that update was more about optimizing Leopard 10.5 than adding hot new features to the Mac (unless you count getting back a bunch of hard drive space as a “hot” new feature).Our prediction is that Mac OS X 10.7 will get at least a cursory mention at WWDC 2010, and we won’t get a real preview of a new desktop operating system until WWDC 2011. Thankfully, Snow Leopard 10.6 runs like smooth, creamy butter most of the time -- and Apple keeps the updates coming regular enough to squash anything that comes up, with a 10.6.4 patch already in beta testing.iPhone OS 4.0 for iPadWe’ve already seen all of the cool stuff that’s presumably coming next month with iPhone OS 4.0, such as Folders, multitasking and threaded e-mail. But we were bummed to hear that the fresh new iPad won’t get the 4.0 love until sometime this fall, by which time Apple will likely be on 4.1 or so.Here’s hoping that Apple will give us at least a peek at iPhone OS 4.x for the iPad at WWDC -- after all, developers will certainly appreciate a longer lead time to rework their apps for the tablet device after having to rush them together between late January and early April for the U.S. iPad launch. The rest of us will just have to wait… and weep.The Real Apple TV Take 2Remember back in January, 2008 when Apple took the wraps off “Take 2” of its “still a hobby” Apple TV? Despite a price drop, closer ties with iTunes and the ability to purchase content directly from the box itself, the Apple TV has continued to bore most everyone who sees it, except for the die-hard hackers who continue to squeeze as much as possible out of the device’s anemic processor and (gasp!) Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger operating system by way of unsanctioned apps like nitoTV and Boxee.We figure the time has come for a truly revolutionary overhaul of Apple TV, especially now that arch-nemesis Google is breathing down Apple’s neck with Google TV, slated for release this fall. Rumors abound that Apple TV may get iPhone OS-ified and will adopt the tiny A4 architecture that will come standard in the next iPhone. Additionally, the new Apple TV will have 1080p HD and 16GB of storage, as well as be a part of Apple's rumored new cloud storage network. The best part about these rumors is that the device is slated to sell for only $99, which will make die hard Apple fans with a tight budget extremely happy. MobileMe: Now With More Free!Recent rumors have speculated that Apple may take a cue from Google and start offering their cloud-based MobileMe service absolutely free to all users. While that would no doubt raise the ire of longtime .Mac users who have paid good money each year to stay with the often-questionable service, it’s really the only recourse Apple may have to keep up with Google now.MobileMe itself isn’t spectacular as it exists now, save for its awesome push e-mail, Find My iPhone, contacts and calendars. The recent web-based Mail beta shows that Apple is taking baby steps toward improving the service, but they’ve got a long ways to go yet. Let’s see that acquisition of Lala start moving iTunes into the cloud, for instance, and speaking of that...iTunes in the CloudSince Apple purchased Lala.com, pundits have been short-circuiting their craniums trying to guess exactly what Cupertino plans to do with the technology -- and equally as important, when that fateful day might arrive. We’re not so sold on the idea of having iTunes “in the cloud” -- call us old fashioned, but it’s kind of nice to actually feel like you own your music, especially now that it’s finally DRM-free.Be that as it may, Apple now appears late to the cloud-based music game, with Google stepping up to the plate to make Android such a cloud-centric experience. We’re not sure that WWDC is the right forum to finally reveal what the company is doing with Lala’s brains, but surely Apple will have to play their hand soon enough.NEXT: iPhones, iTunes and the MacBook Air>>  A Fourth-Generation iPhone No One is ExpectingWhat if Steve Jobs got on stage for his keynote on June 7 and presented an iPhone that was totally different from what Gizmodo and others have leaked? A new report this week from Digitimes has posed just such a possibility, and proposes that the project, codenamed “N91” -- the leaked iPhone we’ve already seen is “N90” -- may exist as “a parallel product to back up the N90 in case there are major delays due to significant modifications in casing, display resolution, digital camera support and so forth.” The report goes on to describe the backup product as more similar in style and form to the existing iPhone 3GS. At this point, everyone is expecting the leaked iPhone (which has been dubbed “iPhone HD” by pundits) to allow some kind of video chatting thanks to the widely exposed leaks of the device with a front-facing camera. Would you be disappointed to see the equivalent of an “iPhone 3GS Plus” at this point? We would...Final Cut Studio 4Sure, we know that the third generation of Final Cut Studio was only released last year, but the update offered little in the way of new features and seemed to take away more than it gave (especially for PowerPC owners, who are now permanently relegated to Final Cut Studio 2, as the newest version requires an Intel processor). The biggest problem with Apple’s pro video suite is that, despite the big 64-bit push with Snow Leopard 10.6, none of Final Cut Studio is 64-bit native -- and those applications could use it.It might be out of character for Apple to unveil a new Final Cut Studio at WWDC, but given the recent hysteria among video professionals upon hearing rumors that the high-end software might be “dumbed down” to make it more consumer-centric, any news on its future would be good news.iTunes 10Speaking of apps that could use a 64-bit kick in the pants -- Apple, what’s going on with iTunes? Despite being the center of the known universe for all iDevices, iTunes continues to be upgraded on top of molasses-like legacy code. It’s like living in a parallel universe, knowing that the Windows version of iTunes is actually faster than it is on the Mac -- that speaks volumes.While cool new features would be welcome also, the reality is that iTunes hasn’t grown all that much over the last few major releases -- does anyone really use the Genius feature, for instance? Where is the built-in lyrics feature for music? (Apple added a section for such metadata several versions back, but you have to do the footwork yourself.) Or how about better media management capabilities, now that we’ve got ever-bigger video files to sync to our iPad but are running out of space on our internal hard drives?iTunes 9.x feels pretty kludgy by this point, so anything is welcome here -- but keep in mind that most big iTunes updates tend to come later in the year, often coupled with the release of new iPods.iLife ’11Maybe we’re starting to sound like a broken record here, but iLife ’09 is another Apple package that’s getting long in the tooth, and could also use a much-needed 64-bit transfusion. We can’t be the only ones who notice that iPhoto, for example, starts to bog down the more we throw pictures at it, so… there’s that. And don’t get us started about iMovie, which for all of its simplicity is an absolute speed dog when you actually have to use it.Hey, perhaps we’re just impatient -- but it seems to us that for all the advancements in the processor and graphics speed of our Macs, it doesn’t take long before all this great software starts to bog down. iLife ’11 might be a few more months in the oven, but it’s never too early to request that Apple slow down on the new features and pull a Snow Leopard here: Let’s see some performance tweaks!iPhone OS + Jailbreak = LoveIf Apple really wanted to make heads spin at WWDC, they’d put down their swords and start playing nice with the jailbreak community. You know, those guys (and gals?) who tirelessly work to free iPhone OS from Apple’s shackles so we can install stuff that Cupertino wishes didn’t exist in the first place, including a GSM unlock for our iPhone (which also frees us from AT&T’s heavy ball and chain at the same time).Frankly, the “cat and mouse game” (as Steve Jobs himself has referred to it) has kind of landed in favor of the jailbreak community anyway of late, with even the latest iPhone OS 4.0 beta build being easy prey for the jailbreak geniuses. Maybe it’s time for Apple to stop worrying and love the jailbreak, officially opening up the device to other apps beyond their gated App Store walls. We can dream, can’t we…?MacBook Air, ReduxNow that the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines have gotten a souped-up refresh and the iPad is on the scene, the MacBook Air is beginning to look a little more overpriced and underpowered than usual. Even though the device is barely two and a half years old, it may be time for Apple to either put it out of its misery or rework it as a touchscreen-enabled, lust-worthy member of Cupertino’s notebook lineup.It’s not hard to imagine that one day soon, the MacBook Air might very well become the “iPad Extreme” -- think of an iPad with attached hardware keyboard, maybe even capable of dual-booting both Mac OS X and iPhone OS so you can get the best of both worlds. We might line up for that one!iPhone Goes CDMAWill they or won’t they? An iPhone compatible with the CDMA networks used by Verizon Wireless and Sprint here in the U.S. has been rumored and desired since the device took center stage at the Macworld 2007 keynote, and here we are more than three years later and AT&T continues to have an exclusive clamp on the GSM-only device.Of course, rumors have run rampant in recent months that AT&T’s exclusive contract is about to end, and that possibly both Verizon and Sprint will finally get in the iPhone game -- to the detriment of AT&T, who is reported to lose possibly as much as 40 percent of its customer base as they defect to one of the CDMA carriers. No better time to announce such a device than at WWDC, where an annual refresh of the iPhone hardware is expected to be a lock.All we ask is that Apple make it an “all in one” device -- meaning both GSM and CDMA, so we can sign in blood with Verizon, Sprint or AT&T here and then have the freedom to buy local GSM-based SIM cards for international travel. Is that asking too much?Presenting… Something Totally New?Apple has had a busy year refreshing its Mac hardware, announcing and subsequently launching the iPad and prepping for the rumored fourth-generation iPhone expected in June, but what if we’ve all overlooked something totally new? Cupertino would seem to have all of the bases covered, from laptop and desktop computers, portable media devices, mobile phones and peripherals -- but that doesn’t mean they can’t still sneak in a curve ball to “shock and awe” us.The question is, what might that be? Only Steve Jobs and maybe a handful of others in Cupertino presumably know the answer to that question, but Apple has a way of dazzling us by reinventing something we’ve always taken for granted, such as the cell phone (with the original iPhone in 2007) or even our very definition of “portable” music (the original iPod in 2001).Whatever it might be, you’re almost certainly guaranteed to have never needed it before, but you’ll surely have to have it once Steve Jobs whips it out. That’s just how Apple rolls.*****Of course, WWDC isn’t simply about hot new Apple products -- it’s about the company intimately working with third-party developers to create the next generation of software that we’ll all swoon over. One thing that the iPhone OS-based devices have shown us: The future is less about hardware and more about the software that runs it.Viewed in that light, the developer conference isn’t simply a “gee-whiz” keynote with fancy new toys from Apple, but rather a plentiful seeding of developer talent that will grow over time and continue to harvest wonders for years to come. We can’t wait to see what Apple helps them create next!

  • GDC 2010: Ngmoco's Neil Young on how freemium will change the App Store world

    Filed under: Gaming, Software, Apple, Developer, iPhone, iPad On the third day of GDC 2010, Ngmoco's Neil Young took the stage in one of the largest rooms at the conference to talk about what his company had "unlearned" in its time in the App Store. Ngmoco has become a large and polarizing figure in the world of App Store development -- after starting out with a big investment from the iFund, it's moved quickly to become one of the biggest iPhone-only developers, and after starting out with a few premium titles like the very successful Rolando, have recently made waves with its "freemium" business model. Young talked about the company's history so far, and went in-depth on Ngmoco's plan for ruling the App Store and why he believes it's the "most significant shift and opportunity for [game developers] since the birth of this business." We've summarized Young's long address in this post. It was pretty incredible -- not only did Young lay out his idea of a clear plan for building and developing a large portfolio of very profitable App Store titles "at scale" (the company plans to release twenty new freemium products on the iPhone in the near future, as well as six titles on the iPad), but he made it very clear that he fervently believes that freemium and the model he's structured is the future of the video game business. He began with a recounting of the history of the company (complete with a Mark Twain quote and impersonation -- later in the lively talk, he also imitated Don King and sang a line from High School Musical), from all the way back at standing in a line "outside of an Apple Store in Santa Monica" waiting to buy an iPhone. He said he quickly saw that the iPhone changed the usage pattern of a smartphone -- usability and capability meant people were interacting with it in new ways. He saw that people were using over half of their time with the iPhone "not making a telephone call," and was convinced enough that games could be a big market that he called up an old partner and went to work. Ngmoco started with a $5.6 million round of funding from the iFund, and Young and his company were in business. He said that the first idea Ngmoco had was to use "highly instrumented" free apps to promote premium products. It would run a bunch of quick, free apps out to the App Store, monitor how and when people used them, and then use that knowledge to promote more in-depth, premium apps. Ngmoco released Mazefinger, Topple, Dr. Awesome, Dropship, and its "first commercial hit," Rolando, all in that first round, using the free apps to drive sales of the higher-level premium apps. After a little while and a lot of data gathering, the company concluded a few things: premium apps were working, but the fast apps were not. Ngmoco would need a better way to reach a bigger audience, and it'd need to do that fast -- Young said that at that time, the App Store market was growing at 400%, but actual app releases were growing 1200%, so his company decided that "it's going to get messy." So it began phase 2. First, another round of funding, and $10 million investment. All legacy products were shipped or killed, and focus was placed on premium titles only -- Star Defense and Rolando 2 -- while the Plus+ network was created for app promotion (to replace the "fast apps" that it'd started with). But it didn't work out: "Star Defense disappointed us," said Young, "and Rolando 2 did better, but it didn't map to the growth of the market." Ngmoco didn't like what it was seeing at other companies either -- in the first few quarters of 2009, the average price in the top five paid apps was only $1.68, and that basically consisted of a few big name premium apps like Rock Band bringing up the average from 99 cents. At that rate, said Young, a company would have to keep a game in the top five for 365 days straight (a relatively impossible task, he said) to make only $12 million. In short, it wasn't possible, in the paid app section of the store, to make a quality application and profit off of it long term at scale. Still, Ngmoco did believe that usage patterns on the iPhone still showed that there was a market to be found, so it went to phase 3 -- "Freeing ourselves," Young called it. He and his company decided that an app was a trade with customers -- customers would pay money to have the company fill out their free time. And that's how the company attached itself to the concept of DAUs. DAUs, explained Young, are "daily active uniques" -- all of the people who log into an app to play with it daily, the number of unique users per given day. The company is also interested in dollars (actually cents) per DAU, or the average number of cents earned per daily user. 250,000 users may play your free app every day, but only 2% may actually pay for it using in-app purchases. If that money total equals $5000, Young said that's like 2,000 users (the average number of downloads for the top list of paid apps at the time) buying your app for $2.50. In short, you don't need to have a paid app at all -- you just need to monetize usage for that 2%. And so in July of 2009, Ngmoco began its push for freemium. The company looked at its library, and killed or shelved everything that it didn't believe would be viable in a free-to-play model. After that, it had only two titles ready to go: Eliminate (which was called Eliminate Pro in the App Store, because that was meant to be the premium version, and the name never got changed), and Touch Pets. It also purchased a social MMO called Epic Pet Wars, and let it operate on its own, silently watching and learning what they could about how it all worked, all while "seeding" its own Plus+ network. And that worked. Eliminate and Touch Pets both went to the #1 spot on the App Store on their releases, and Touch Pets is still growing -- it had its highest-grossing day on Valentine's Day of this year. "Vision became math," said Young, and he was convinced he had something. The design of both of those apps actually drove DAUs, and more DAUs meant more engagement, which meant more in-app purchases, which meant more profit. Ngmoco, Young believes, has "tangibly connected" game design to business success in a model that it can replicate. And he believes the biggest game in this model is yet to come -- if Ngmoco can make a game with 10 million DAUs, and design it well enough to get more than five cents per DAU, then "that would be a really, really big business." One more round of financing, this time $25 million, and Ngmoco is taking the freemium model off to the races. Godfinger and We Rule are currently in beta (which, in the strange environment of the App Store, means they're only released in the Canadian region, not only because "we like them and they seem nice," Young joked, but because they are 5% of the global audience and happen to map pretty nicely to 75% of Ngmoco's business, in the US and the UK), and the company is planning a whole slew of titles for this year. Next, Young ran through the three ways he believes this model is completely rethinking game design. First, it's doing things different in terms of development: traditionally, a large team of people works for a long time on a game, and once it's been through QA and testing phases, the game is released, with possible DLC afterwards. When Ngmoco started making games, it did things a little differently -- much shorter development times, highly instrumentalized (to track customer usage), with a team of five to seven people for fairly constant updates (to keep users engaged). But under the freemium model, the plan looks very different in three major ways. First, development only takes a few months, and only until the company develops an MVP ("Minimum Viable Product") -- a game that's not yet finished, but polished enough to be released. Then there's a limited period of testing in Canada, and then the game is not released, but simply made "live," at which point a small team of different people (because developers tend to get tired of a product soon after release, Young said) oversees it through "active," "sustain," and eventually "sunset" phases. The business model is also very different -- in a freemium model, the few subsidize the many. Young compared this to old-school arcades, where only a few "very engaged users" (about 2%, he pointed out) were constantly dropping quarters into arcade machines, even though lots of people came and played them. "Free to play is the new quartersink," he said, and then went further to say that in Ngmoco games, the "core compulsion loop is limited" even further by social interaction and gameplay mechanics (like Eliminate's Energy), which means they have an even better chance to "motivate" users than arcades ever had. And this, said Young, is the real shift in the business -- the design of games can directly increase retention, which can directly increase profits. Ngmoco can "build designs as beautiful engines" that will scale with its audiences. And its goal is to create games that require monetization not simply as a gate to content, but as an "enabler" -- instead of preventing enjoyment while not paying, it wants to "enable" enjoyment for users who are "motivated" to pay. Time can also be used as a gameplay variable, said Young, and the company is planning to use push notifications to increase engagement -- your games will send you notices that you need to take some action or that something has happened, and you'll be pulled back into becoming a DAU. And Young ran through the various ways that companies would be able to monetize those DAUs -- they can sell ads in the apps or use links to sell other apps on the store, or they can sell virtual goods directly to customers (Touch Pets, said Young, is making about $2.87 per transaction, and Eliminate is making about $2.17 per average transaction, which he expects will be low for them in the future. Finally, Young said that hits will look very different under this model -- apps will make the Top Grossing chart in the app store, but being in that chart will be the result of their sales, not the reason for them. And he believes that Ngmoco's biggest game is still to be made -- all of the Plus+ apps average about two sessions per DAU (in other words, most people log into them about two times a day), Ngmoco apps as a whole log about 3 sessions per DAU, and We Rule, the first big release with lessons learned under this model, logs about 5. Young believes that when Ngmoco finally gets its "superhits" going, the revenues will put other handheld gaming platforms "to shame," and even approach the revenues of mainstream console games. "This is the biggest transition since gaming began," Young told the crowd, and finished his address to rapturous applause.TUAWGDC 2010: Ngmoco's Neil Young on how freemium will change the App Store world originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments iPhone - Neil Young - Ngmoco - appstore - Rolando

  • 20 Years of Image Editing: Photoshop from 1.0 to CS4

       From its humble beginnings on a grad student's Mac Plus to its complete photo-editing domination, Photoshop has changed the world in 20 short years.  Photoshop is everywhere. And while fundamentally it is the standard professional-quality image editor, it’s also a cultural touchstone with a reach that extends to advertising, fashion magazines, television, film, and the news. Lighter versions like Photoshop Elements, Photoshop.com, and even Photoshop Mobile on the iPhone have distilled its power for the masses, and sites like PhotoshopDisasters.blogspot.com chronicle painful misuses for everyone to point at and giggle about. “Photoshop” the verb was even added to Webster’s dictionary in 1992.In such a Photoshop-saturated society, it’s easy to forget that the software hasn’t been around forever. Since February 2010 marks the 20th anniversary of Photoshop 1.0, now is the perfect time to revisit everything from Adobe’s systematic dismantling of its competition to the way the software was used to make Katie Couric “lose weight.” Two Decades of Photoshop We give you every single Photoshop release, plus the effects of Adobe's software on its competition and our culture. 1987 Release: Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, creates a program called Display for his Mac Plus. It can display 256-shade grayscale images on a 1-bit black-and-white screen with dithering. 1988 Release: Display is renamed Photoshop, and the Knoll brothers (Thomas and John, an effects expert at Industrial Light & Magic [ILM]) license the first version to Barneyscan, a slide-scanner manufacturer. Approximately 200 copies of version 0.87 ship bundled with the scanners.Cultural: The first working version of Photoshop appears at Apple, and the era of Photoshop piracy begins as engineers pass it around amongst themselves and gape in awe. 1989 Release: John Knoll demos Photoshop for Adobe's primary art director Russell Brown and founder John Warnock. Adobe signs a distribution deal with the Knoll brothers. 1990 Release: Photoshop 1.0 ships. It requires an 8MHz processor and 2MB of RAM. The software fits on a single 3.5-inch floppy disk. Key features include color correction, image optimization for output, Curves, Levels, and the Clone tool.Cultural: Photoshop is used extensively at ILM during postproduction work on The Abyss. 1991 Cultural: ILM continues to use Photoshop to create digital composite shots for movies like The Rocketeer, Hook, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.Release: Photoshop 2.0 (code-named Fast Eddy) ships with CMYK support, Duotones, the Path tool, and rasterization of Illustrator files. But the HSB and HSL color modes in 1.0 are gone.Cultural: John Knoll covertly releases a program to revert Adobe Photoshop's "eye" application icons back to the original "1HR Photo Shop" icon.Release: Adobe releases an SDK for third-party plug-in development. Later in the year, Aldus (developer of PageMaker) releases the Gallery Effects plug-in package. 1992 Release: Kai Krause releases Kai's Power Tools, a popular plug-in set for Photoshop featuring graphically rich (and often bewildering) visual interfaces. 1993 Release: Photoshop 2.5 (code-named Merlin) ships with 16-bit image support, palettes, Quick Mask, Dodge and Burn tools, and the Variations visual color-correction tool. This is the first Photoshop version available on Windows as well as Mac. 1994 Cultural: Time magazine runs a cover photo of O.J. Simpson that was photoshopped with very dark color correction, creating controversy over how African Americans are portrayed by the media.Release: Photoshop 3.0 (code-named Tiger Mountain) introduces image layers, often considered the most important feature ever added to the program.Release: Alien Skin Software delivers the first drop-shadow effect plugin for Photoshop.Competition: Adobe acquires Aldus, keeping PageMaker on life support by burying Windows-only image editor PhotoStyler.Competition: HSC Software introduces Live Picture, billed as a next-generation nondestructive image editor, for a whopping introductory price of $3,995. 1995 Competition: HSC Software lowers Live Picture price to $995 in one fell swoop, angering early adopters who paid full price.Competition: Quark introduces XPosure image-editing software at the Seybold Seminars in Boston. Developed in conjunction with Japanese electronics giant JVC, the product boasts a nondestructive filter featuring "lenses"... but it never ships. 1996 Release: Photoshop 4.0 (code-named Big Electric cat) ships with nondestructive adjustment layers, Actions, macros, grids, guides, the Free Transform tool, and a radically redesigned user interface. Photoshop 4.0 LE (Limited Edition) is bundled with a wide range of image scanners.Competition: Macromedia ships its xRes image editor, which also features nondestructive image editing. Although it soon became another footnote in image editing hisotry, you can still see a bit of its DNA in Adobe Fireworks. Next Page: Photoshop Timeline continued >> 1997 Competition: Former Apple CEO John Sculley becomes chairman of Live Picture and tries to salvage Live Picture technology for web applications. 1998 Release: Photoshop 5.0 (code-named Strange Cargo) ships. New features include the History palette and its multiple undos, editable type, layer effects (now called Styles), spot colors, ICC color management, and the Magnetic Lasso tool. CMYK files go to 64-bit (16 bits/channel). The new 3D Transform plug-in is the forerunner to the 3D menu in the current Extended version, and this is also the first Photoshop that supported integrated online updating.Competition: Live Picture is spotted selling in mail-order catalogs for under $100. 1999 Release: Adobe ImageReady 2 becomes part of Photoshop 5.5, allowing animated GIFs and sliced JPEG images. This release also adds the Extract command (for isolating images from their backgrounds), the Art History Brush, and Save For Web. 2000 Release: Photoshop 6.0 (code-named Venus in Furs) includes vector-based shapes, content layers (solid, gradient, and texture fills), Layer Styles, the Liquefy filter, a tool options bar, layer-based slicing for HTML work, and an extensive interface overhaul. 2001 ---  2002 Release: Photoshop 7.0 (code-named Liquid Sky) ships with the Healing Brush tool, a revamped brush engine, integrated image browser, custom workspaces, and even a spell checker. It's the last version that runs under OS 9.Release: Adobe releases the consumer-oriented Photoshop Elements package, which replaces the earlier LE versions of Photoshop that were bundled with many third-party scanners and digitizers. 2003 Release: Photoshop 7.0.1 update includes support for RAW image formats via the Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in.Release: Photoshop CS (code-named Dark Matter), included in all Adobe Creative Suite editions, has layer groups, the Shadow/Highlight and Match Color tools, text on a path, the Lens Blur filter, custom keyboard shortcuts, and JavaScript support. CS is the first version to require activation, have Standard and Extended versions, and a PDF manual.Cultural: Photoshop CS also includes code to automatically detect attempts to scan currency banknotes, fueling many conspiracy theories. 2004 --- 2005 Release: Photoshop CS2 (code-named Space Monkey) ships with Bridge (which replaces integrated Browser), Smart Objects, Spot Healing tool, Vanishing Point and Red retouching tools, HDR (high dynamic range; 32 bits per channel) merging abilities, and the Lens Correction filter. A rather significant but subtle addition to CS2 is the ability to select more than one layer at a time. 2006 Release: Adobe releases a public beta of Photoshop Lightroom, an image-management database aimed at professional photographers.Cultural: Newswire service Reuters is caught in a scandal when it's busted using Photoshop to enhance smoke plumes in an image of Beirut.Cultural: CBS's official photo of news anchor Katie Couric is photoshopped to shave a few too many pounds off her frame. 2007 Release: Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 ships.Release: Photoshop CS3 (code-named Red Pill) ships with native Intel processor support, Smart Filters, the ability to import and process video, significant interface revisions, the Black and White conversion tool, far more support for editing images with more than 8 bits/channel, and a seriously improved Clone tool. 2008  Release: Adobe launches the Flash-based Photoshop Express app on Photoshop.com, offering limited image-editing functionality and online storage.Cultural: Iran's state-run media agency releases a photo of a missile test, altered to add a fourth missile. (The third missile from the right is a clone of the second missile.)Release: Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 is released, adding 64-bit operation, multiple-monitor support, localized image corrections, and enhanced editing abilities.Release: Photoshop CS4 (code-named Stonehenge) ships with OpenGL acceleration, Content Aware Scaling, 64-bit support for Windows Vista (but not Mac!), improved RAW image processing, and auto layer-alignment tools. 2009 Release: Adobe makes Photoshop.com available for the iPhone as a free mobile edition, delivering limited image editing on the run.Release: Adobe launches a public beta of Lightroom 3.0, featuring better grain- and noise-management tools. 2010 Cultural: Photoshop turns 20! China is the traditional gift, but we'd prefer CS5. Next Page: The Evolution of Photoshop Splash Screens >> Making a Splash We’re so used to seeing a splash screen every time we open Photoshop that we hardly pause to glance at it any more. But really, the wild, way-out splash screens on the beta versions of Photoshop over the years are a lot more eye-catching. Peep this gallery of the beta splash screens next to their official-release counterparts. (Click to enlarge) Version 2.5  Version 3.0  Version 4.0  Version 5.0  Version 6.0  Version 7.0  Version CS  Version CS2  Version CS3  Version CS4   Next Page: Vintage Photoshop Toolbars >> Vintage Tools The photoshop toolbar has evolved over the years too--first to add more tools, then to streamline its appearance and take up less space.  Next Page: Interview -- Photoshop Unmasked >> Photoshop Unmasked Two Adobe power players talk about Photoshop's birth, evolution, and future. Adobe’s Senior Creative Director Russell Brown and VP of Product Management for Professional Digital Imaging Kevin Connor are two of the brightest stars in the Photoshop galaxy—they’ve rung up 38 years of Adobe experience between them. Brown even won an Emmy in 2008 for his Dr. Brown’s Photoshop Laboratory show on tv.adobe.com. We probed their giant, Photoshop-filled brains with these chin-scratching questions… Mac|Life: What are your first memories of seeing Photoshop?Russell Brown: My first viewing of it was when John Knoll gave me a demo in 1989. I recall that he created a soft-edge selection mask and painted into it with a soft-edge brush. Wow! This was downright amazing. Nothing like it was possible on the Macintosh or PC at the time. Technology like this was only available on high-end prepress systems. I knew that what I was seeing was a serious new tool that was going to change my life.Kevin Connor: Prior to joining Adobe, I was working at a small startup company. We had one copy of Photoshop installed on one of the Macs in the office, and I remember stepping through the menus and tools just to see what they could do. It was probably version 2.5. I also remember a freelance designer we worked with at the time marveling at all that could be accomplished by manipulating color channels. Mac|Life: Russell, is there a specific Photoshop feature that you can't live without?RB: That would most definitely have to be layers. Nothing can replace layers. I’m sure that about 90 percent of our users might say the same thing. Mac|Life: Kevin, how do you see Photoshop evolving over the course of the next decade?KC: A number of trends will influence that. From a technology standpoint, the big trend is computational photography. Increasingly, software algorithms are being used to derive photographs that could not be directly captured using traditional optics and sensors. Today, this technology can give us seamless panorama photos or wide-angle shots with no distortion, but in the future, it may even give us the ability to manipulate a photograph in three dimensions, adjusting vantage point and focus after the capture. Ultimately, it can also lead to software that is smarter about understanding the contents of a photo and can manipulate it as more than just a collection of pixels.Another trend that will affect Photoshop’s future is the distribution of workflows across the web and mobile devices. It may not make sense to move all of Photoshop into a web-based application, but certain things may be done better on the web or on the road, and products will start to blur the line between the desktop, the web, and other devices. As we manage these big changes, we also need to continue to evolve the Photoshop interface so that these new capabilities can fit in naturally, while older capabilities can be refreshed and improved. Of course, it’s hard to say yet precisely what you’ll see in five years or 10 years, but these are things we’re already working on today that we expect to influence the product for some time to come. Mac|Life: Russell, any particular online Photoshop resources you'd recommend to our readers?RB: Definitely. In fact, here's a list of my favorite websites for Photoshop information:>> blogs.adobe.com/jnack/>> www.photoshopuser.com/psuser.htm>> www.mogo-media.com/welcome-pst.php>> www.photoshopnews.com>> www.lynda.com>> www.russellbrown.com Mac|Life: Do you think there will ever be a viable competitor to Photoshop?KC: There’s always competition, but if we do our jobs right, people just don’t notice! I’m being a little facetious, but my point is that Photoshop is a very big target, and companies both big and small have continuously taken aim at it. They just haven’t generally been successful. 

  • Bambooapps releases Keep Your Word 1.5 for Mac OS X

    Posted by Dennis SellersBambooapps has released Keep Your Word 1.0 for Mac OS X 10.5 (“Leopard”). The software lets you build your own dictionary, classifying and grouping the terms exactly how you want to, while helping you to learn the longest list of words thanks to its different exercise modes.

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