Has Apple Found a Base?

As shown in the chart below, Apple (AAPL) has bounced a bit over the past two days. This bounce occurred right after the stock hit the bottom of its trading range channel that it has been in for a few months now.If the stock can take out its highs from last Wednesday, it clears the way for a move back to the top of its range.

As shown in the chart below, Apple (AAPL) has bounced a bit over the past two days. This bounce occurred right after the stock hit the bottom of its trading range channel that it has been in for a few months now.If the stock can take out its highs from last Wednesday, it clears the way for a move back to the top of its range.

  • Gear of the Year 2009

    Apple and its partners released hundreds upon hundreds of compelling products this year. We scoured the hardware universe, tested the heck out of the most intriguing gear we found, and now share our exclusive list of the 15 very best.Apple doesn’t make product design easy for its third-party partners and the rest of the hardware-manufacturing universe. Jonathan Ive and his design team craft the most emotionally inspiring gear in all of computing and gadgetdom, which only sets the bar higher for those companies aspiring to make products that work with Apple gear. Add in the fact that Steve Jobs keeps many of Apple’s development plans private, and you have third-party vendors essentially “designing blind,” as they anticipate products that complement the Apple oeuvre.But, oh well, such is the price we pay for gear that moves the soul. Apple’s design process creates the coolest family of products on the market, and the best third-party manufacturers always find a way to create gear and accessories that match Apple’s hallmarks of slick design, simple operation, and clever, cutting-edge features. On the following pages, we present the very best of the hardware we tested this year, as well as the iPhone and iPod touch apps that made profound impacts on the screens of our handhelds.Notebook: 13" MacBook ProPretend it’s January 1, 2009, and you’re in the market for a 13-inch Mac laptop. Your choices are few: Either a plastic MacBook starting at $999 (for which you’d get 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, and a 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo “Penryn” chip), or the svelte aluminum MacBook Air starting at $1,799 (2GB of non-upgradeable RAM, the same 120GB hard drive, and a 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo “Penryn” chip).The gulf between their prices: significant. The difference in their specs: yawn-inducing.The 13-inch MacBook Pro does a happy dance every time we sing its deserved praises.Thankfully, Apple introduced the 13-inch MacBook Pro in June, giving mobilistas the same features as the 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros in a smaller, more portable package. Compared to the Air, it’s got more ports, a faster chip, upgradeable RAM, and a bigger and faster hard drive--and starting at $1,199, the 13-inch MBP is a few ducats cheaper too (the Air now starts at $1,499). From its all-day battery life to its oh-so-convenient SD card slot, the 13-inch Pro quickly became the favorite new Mac in our offices and a hands-down shoo-in for Gear of the Year honors.COMPANY: AppleCONTACT: www.apple.comPRICE: $1,199 and upDisplay: LED Cinema DisplayApple’s LED Cinema Display isn’t necessarily perfect. It’s kinda expensive and only works with Mini DisplayPort–equipped Mac models (unibody MacBook Pros, the now-defunct unibody MacBook, the MacBook Air, and the latest Mac Pro and iMac). If your machine sports a DVI or mini-DVI port instead of a Mini DisplayPort, you can’t use this display, even with Apple’s adapters. Yes, at press time, Atlona was releasing an adapter that purports to connect any DVI Mac to this display, but we haven’t yet been able to test it yet.Behold: 24 inches of wow.So, yes, it may present problems for the budget- and DisplayPort-challenged, but none are serious enough to rob this incredible display of GOTY recognition. The 24-inch LED-backlit screen is sublime, even without a matte option, and the $899 price tag doesn’t seem so steep considering that the monitor can also power your laptop with its built-in MagSafe power cord. It’s like having a second power adapter, which typically would cost you $129. The LED Cinema Display also reflects the environmental strides Apple made in 2009: The glass is arsenic free, the cables are PVC free, it meets Energy Star requirements, it’s free of BFR and mercury, and the glass and aluminum enclosure are highly recyclable. OK, OK, and it’s great looking too. We’re just shallow like that.COMPANY: AppleCONTACT: www.apple.comPRICE: $899 Camcorder: Zi8 Pocket Video CameraKodak’s pocket-size Zi8 edges out the Flip MinoHD (4 out of 5 stars, Mar/09), thanks to its uncanny versatility. Nearly the same size as the Flip, the Zi8 can shoot in full 1080p at 30 frames per second, 720p at both 30 and 60 frames per second, widescreen VGA (848x480), and also take 5-megapixel stills. Removable SDHC cards let you swap in new memory, and the rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery is also removable, so you can pack extra cards and batteries and keep shooting all day, weekend, vacation, or bender long. A tripod mount, macro mode, 2.5-inch display, and stereo microphone input round out the package.Removable memory and batteries keep you shooting all day.Oh, and it’s $20 cheaper than the Flip MinoHD too (though you will need to shell out for an SDHC card; an 8GB one goes for about $25). Even the PC-only software doesn’t rain on the Zi8’s parade too much--the MOV files play in QuickTime and can be imported into iMovie for further editing. We hear ArcSoft Media Impressions, the included software, is no picnic anyhow, although we really wouldn’t know, as we’re all Mac Lifers. (Mac Lifers who are now videotaping each others’ every move.)COMPANY: KodakCONTACT: www.kodak.comPRICE: $179.95Printer: Epson Stylus Photo R2880With multifunction printers like the Epson Artisan 810 running about $300 for quite impressive photo reproduction, some might think us decadent for choosing a photo-only printer that costs twice as much. Well, price isn’t a major consideration in Gear of the Year voting, and when we consider the Stylus Photo R2880’s special talents for black-and-white printing and fine-art reproduction in general, we can’t help but turn to Epson’s most prosumer-oriented wide-format printer.An eight-cartridge ink system includes special magenta pigments for breathtaking tonal range in color prints. But where the R2880 really excels is in the grayscale reproduction of black-and-white prints. Three levels of black pigments and a special Black-and-White Photo Mode eliminate all of the unfortunate colorcasting that occurs in black-and-white prints from lesser photo printers.Only the fancy blue lighting in our photo studio casts impure color on the R2880's neutral B&W reproduction.The R2880 also supports a huge array of paper sizes and types. Formats range from 4x6 inches to 13x19 inches and 13-inch panoramic rolls. Supported paper types include Epson’s own velvet, watercolor, and canvas mattes, each of which feature its own unique fine-art texture. You can even feed in 1.3mm-thick art boards! The R2880 is the artist’s choice. We love it.COMPANY: EpsonCONTACT: www.epson.comPRICE: $599.99Camera: EOS 5D Mark IIPro photographers would likely give the stink eye to anyone who even suggested using one of those toy digi-cams that shoots both still images and video. But the Canon 5DMII isn’t a toy--it’s a game-changing digital SLR that adds the ability to shoot 1080p video to an already unbelievable package. That’s right, kids: This thing shoots HD video out of the box.The 5DMII takes insanely detailed still images with its 21.1 megapixel, 35mm CMOS sensor, which is 60 percent larger than the sensor in most other DSLRs. This translates into crisper images all around and low-light photos with zero to little grain or noise. And thanks to an enormous 3-inch LCD screen, you’ll be able to preview your shots with amazing detail, all in real time.Doesn't look like a video camera--but it is.When you get tired of still photos, you can shoot up to 12 minutes of HD 1080p video per each 4GB of flash memory. Video quality is good, and if you eschew the stock lens for a manually operated Canon lens, you can achieve superb video quality that rivals that of pro-level HD video cameras. Will the 5DMII replace those expensive HD video cameras? No. But it does take one step closer to leveling the playing field.COMPANY: CanonCONTACT: www.usa.canon.comPRICE: $2,699 (Body Only)Desktop: 24-inch 3.06GHz iMacThere was a time not so long ago that when a pro content-creator needed a new Mac, we would emphatically point him or her to the fastest Mac Pro. You need to edit video? Get a Mac Pro. You got some huge photo files that need retouching? Get a Mac Pro. Mixing your latest album? Well, you get the point.The granddaddy of all iMacs is a winning mix of everything we care about in Apple computers.But now we’re not so sure, considering the sheer raw power and screen size of the 24-inch, 3.06GHz iMac. The biggest iMac in the Apple corral, this machine screams, thanks to its Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Nvidia GeForce GT 130 videocard, and cutting-edge DDR3 RAM. Throw in a 1TB of drive space and that huge beautiful display, and you have a desktop rig that’s gloriously well appointed for consumer enthusiasts and pretty damn zippy for professionals. The 24-inch iMac doesn’t beat the Mac Pro in terms of sheer processor power and expandability, but it’s perfection in terms of its price-to-performance-to-convenience ratios.COMPANY: AppleCONTACT: www.apple.comPRICE: $2,199iPhone Case: FeatherThe Feather case is less than a millimeter thick. That’s thin, y’all. Made of a light but strong polymer, it snaps around your iPhone with a satisfying click, providing a layer of scratch-n-bump protection and a splash of color without adding any bulk whatsoever. The Feather comes in more than a dozen colors, including eye-catching, limited-edition fluorescents. Incipio even includes two surface protectors (removable film for your iPhone’s touchscreen) and a soft cleaning cloth.The NBC peacock would be so proud.The bottom is open so you can dock your device in nearly any accessory without having to pull the case off first. Not every case can do that, which is why the Feather quickly became the iPhone case of choice in the Mac|Life offices. Our iPhones are nearly as busy as we are, in and out of docks, speakers, and other accessories all day long. Stylish, rugged, and thin. That’s the hat trick for an iPhone case, and the Feather scores big on all three points.COMPANY: IncipioCONTACT: www.myincipio.comPRICE: $19.99Networking Device: Verizon MiFi 2200At first glance, the MiFi doesn’t look impressive--it’s just a shard of shiny black plastic and a few LEDs. But once you charge it up and slip it in your pocket, it becomes a tool of furious networking utility.The MiFi achieves the seemingly impossible: making networking hardware sexy.MiFi uses Wi-Fi to form a bridge between your computer and Verizon’s 3G data network, allowing you to access the Internet from anywhere Verizon has 3G coverage. That means you can take your MacBook to the beach and iChat with your pals with your toes in the sand--or grab online copies of the dreaded quarterly TPS report. You can also work from your favorite café, park bench, or even a moving vehicle (as a passenger), all without having to worry about finding an open Wi-Fi network. Better still, unlike USB or ExpressCard devices that only work with a single computer, you can share your MiFi connection with up to four additional computers.Oh, sure, there are probably a bunch of Wi-Fi home network routers that did a bang-up job in 2009. Yay for them. Give them all cake and ice cream. We’ll still take the MiFi, a networking product that actually does something new.COMPANY: VerizonCONTACT: www.verizonwireless.comPRICE: $149.99 with two-year service contractSet-Top Media Player: Western Digital WD TVSorry Apple TV, but the WD TV gets the nod for being the best device to deliver content from your Mac’s multimedia collection directly to your TV. In April, we gave the WD TV a tepid 3-star rating for some awkward interface issues, but since then WD has issued firmware updates addressing some of the nits and adding support for more video formats. Yes, we’re still waiting for network connectivity directly from Western Digital, but an active hacking community has been expanding the WD TV’s feature set, including getting it to play nice on Wi-Fi networks.Firmware updates and community hacks elevated the WD TV to greatness. Nine months and several different set-top boxes later, we still find ourselves skipping more complicated competitors and using the WD TV to play media files on our HDTVs. This box seems to support every file format one can throw at it. And unlike Apple and other set-top box competitors, Western Digital takes a very hacker-friendly stance with the WD TV, which we applaud, as great developments often flow from a passionate hacker community. It may not be the highest-tech device in our entertainment center, but for ease-of-use and rock-steady reliability, it’s the media box we love most.COMPANY: Western DigitalCONTACT: www.wdc.comPRICE: $99.99Gadget: Pulse SmartpenThis überhandy pen records audio, all while a teeny infrared camera in the tip links the sound to whatever you’re writing at the time. This lets you sit back and really listen to a lecture, meeting, or presentation without frantically scribbling notes. Instead, you can just jot the quickest of notes (even a single number or letter--whatever you like) on Livescribe’s special dot paper and then easily find the associated audio clip later. To do this, just tap a note with your pen as you’re playing back the audio, and the recording instantly jumps to the portion that was recorded when you wrote that note. Docking the pen uploads your recordings and a digitized version of your notes to the Livescribe Desktop app, which lets you archive, search, organize, and share your notes and audio.The notebook in this photo isn't a random prop. It's a volume of Livescribe's special dot paper.It’s difficult to explain how useful the Pulse and Livescribe Desktop are (and they do more than we’ve outlined here), but the genius behind the idea, the pen’s classy design, and the “it just works” simplicity dropped the jaws of every single Mac|Life staffer when we got our paws on it earlier this year. It’s our Gadget of the Year--take a note.COMPANY: LivescribeCONTACT: www.livescribe.comPRICE: $169.99 and upiPods: Fifth-Gen iPod nanoThe fifth-gen iPod nano is the first iteration of the nano since the original to not receive a perfect 5-star score from Mac|Life, but it’s still undoubtedly the iPod of the Year. Its 2.2-inch screen is the biggest for a nano ever, it plays FM radio--something we’ve requested for years--and, oh yeah, did you notice that it shoots video? (Apple might have mentioned something about that in the commercials, but we just wanted to make sure.)The video camera interface includes a generous collection of 15 special visual effects, including ones that mimic thermal heat maps, creepy X-rays, old-timey sepia tones, and trippy motion blurs--just like when the vampires speed up in True Blood! This latest nano also includes a pedometer function that shows you how many steps you’ve taken on your latest hike. All in all, the fifth-gen nano has a cunning array of talents and is our iPod of choice, especially if price is a consideration.An honorable mention should go to the third-gen iPod touch, now at a lower price to bring App Store goodness to more people (cue the zombies: “One of us! One of us!”) without subjecting them to the slings and arrows of an AT&T contract.COMPANY: AppleCONTACT: www.apple.comPRICE: $149 (8GB), $179 (16GB)Earbuds: Future Sonics AtrioTwo bills for a set of earbuds isn’t exactly an impulse buy, but certain things in life warrant dropping a bit of extra coin. World-class computers, fine bourbon, and audiophile-caliber earbuds all make our short list of entirely justifiable splurges. Future Sonics manufactures “in-ear monitors” for professional musicians, and the Atrio earbuds reflect that professional pedigree. They’ve outlasted several other pairs of comparably priced ’buds, which is no small feat, considering the daily abuse we put them through. But it’s really their impressive bass response--even at low volumes--that kept us coming back to them during Gear of the Year deliberations.Comfort and excellent bass response are worth $200.True to their roots in performance gear, the Atrios are comfortable for extended wear, and their treble is crisp and clean, without becoming fatiguing after listening for long periods. We’ve used the Atrios in a wide range of playback scenarios, from listening to the latest Kid Cudi record on the train, to the new Beatles box set at home, all with stellar results. In fact, we like them so much, we’ve been tempted to spring for optional custom-fit sleeves--but that would require a trip to an audiologist to take molds of our ear canals. Oh well, the included tips still sound mighty sweet.COMPANY: Future SonicsCONTACT: www.futuresonics.comPRICE: $199Speaker Dock: SYD 5After testing a lab full of iPod speaker docks this year, we’ve determined an incontestable truth: Either go big or go home. Indeed, after being bombarded with flimsy, tiny, tinny docks festooned with clocks, radios, cute graphics, and other distracting “features,” we found audio excellence in the Kanto SYD 5. It’s large, it bumps deep, deep base, and its only “feature” is the color you choose for its smooth, shiny shell. At 22 lbs, the SYD 5 feels like speakers of days gone by--and when a speaker has heft, it usually also has the audio to back up the extra weight.The SYD 5 system comes in black, green, and blue--and a curious note on the Kanto website reads, "other Pantone colors possible." Someone out there please order Flame Orange, 15-1157 TPX!The SYD 5 accomplishes its feats of strength with four speakers hidden behind a removable front cover. Two 5.25-inch drivers and a bunch of reflex ports push deep, rich bass for your hip-hop mixes, while two 3-inch drivers deliver the high end for all the wailing guitars you can handle. Weeeee!The SYD 5 includes an audio auxiliary input and AC power outlet for Hessian-caliber iTunes rocking with an AirPort Extreme. RCA and S Video outputs allow you to watch videos from your iPod on your TV. The weight lifter’s belt for your lower back? That one’s on you.COMPANY: KantoCONTACT: www.kantospeakers.comPRICE: $359iPhone Headset: Griffin TuneBuds MobileApple has a headset problem. The one it bundles with the iPhone is, well…the dictionary definition is “craptacular.” And we’re pretty sure that cramming hard plastic into one’s ears doesn’t meet anyone’s definition of comfortable. And don’t even get us started on the sound quality. Bottom line: We’re now on the third iteration of the iPhone, and Apple still hasn’t managed to include a set of ’buds that is comfy, stays in place, sounds good, and includes a good mic.Griffin Technology’s TuneBuds Mobile succeeds on all four points, and we dig its reasonable price. We don’t have anything against expensive, audiophile-level gear, but we absolutely love affordable accessories that do a really good job, and that describes the TuneBuds quite succinctly.No more tangles! Thank you, Griffin.The TuneBuds will work with your iPhone or any recent iPod that sports VoiceOver or Voice Control. The cable is covered in braided nylon and feels sturdier than most headset or earbud cables. And when you wind up the TuneBuds and stuff them in your pocket, the cables don’t tangle quite as much as other headsets. A small detail for sure, but that’s the kind of quality that helps a product transcend from great to awesome.COMPANY: GriffinCONTACT: www.griffintechnology.comPRICE: $39.99Smartphone: iPhone 3GSInternet fanboys will hurl slander that we’re secretly on Apple’s payroll. Mac computer enthusiasts will say we’ve drunk the Kool-Aid for a silly little pocket toy. And iPod touch owners will cry that we just don’t get it--that the iPhone is considerably more expensive than the similarly featured touch and isn’t even a very good device for voice calls, which is a bit of a problem for any gadget with the word “phone” in its name.To our critics, we say bah! We’ll see your cynicism and raise you 100 chips of we don’t care. Ever since June 2007 when we all bought our first-gen models, we have been using, loving, and hourly depending on some version of the iPhone, and the improvements in this year’s 3GS only reaffirm what most of our readers already know: Apple’s smartphone is the coolest, most useful piece of technology to hit the market since the personal computer itself.Let us reiterate the key improvements introduced in the 3GS:» Significantly faster app load times and better graphics performance in games.» Higher-res, better-looking photos thanks to a new 3-megapixel camera, now with automatic focus, exposure, and white-balance control.» Video support care of the fancy new camera.» Voice Control, which lets you find contacts, call phone numbers, and play music simply by talking into the iPhone's microphone.» A compass function that orients maps correctly, among other sweet benefits.Six Mac|Life editors, but only five new iPhones. Who's the 3GS holdout!?Did you really think any other mobile phone could knock the iPhone from our top spot? Of course not. But because the iPhone 3GS is so incredibly handy and has become so thoroughly integrated into the flow of our daily lifestyles, we are also compelled to name it Mac|Life Product of the Year. The apps we use entertain us, inform us, and have disruptively replaced a slew of other products and tools that we used by rote only a few years ago. And the new wave of augmented reality apps bring a certain Minority Report fantasy function to a device that is already firmly sci-fi.So don’t come crying to us with protests of “AT&T sucks!” and “there’s no physical keyboard!” We acknowledge those shortcomings, but remain resolute in our conviction that the iPhone 3GS is quite simply the finest, most innovative piece of personal technology by a wide, wide margin.COMPANY: AppleCONTACT: www.apple.comPRICE: $199 (16GB), $299 (32GB) (Pricing for both capacities is for new AT&T customers and eligible current customers) 

  • 50 of the Most Burning Apple Questions Answered

    You asked for help with the thorniest problems facing Mac, iPhone, and iPad owners, and we answered, providing 50 foolproof solutions that’ll come in handy for anyone who uses Apple gear.For months now, we’ve been asking you to send us your most burning Apple questions, and to put it mildly, you came through. The queue in our inbox looked longer than the lines that curled around NYC’s 5th Avenue Apple Store for the launch of the very first iPhone. And when we dug into the meat and potatoes of your queries, we could only marvel at the insightful list of vexing technical issues and twinkle-in-your-eye trivia tidbits that you challenged us with. We distilled all those inquiries down to the 50 best, most burning questions about Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Apple itself. Then we put our crack team of experts on the job of coming up with this ultimate answers guide for all things Apple. Struggling with iTunes syncing? iPhone backups? RAID cards? iPad printing? Or just wondering exactly what Steve actually wears every day? The answers await, backstopped and bulletproofed by the pros at Mac|Life.1. Duplicates in iPhotoI can’t find any options in iPhoto for removing all duplicate pictures in one fell swoop, and I don’t want to find and delete them all myself. Any ideas?iPhoto lacks iTunes’ duplicate-deleting prowess, but the shareware app Duplicate Annihilator can fill this gap and free your photo library of clutter. Despite the name, it identifies and tags duplicate pictures with a keyword so you can collect them in a Smart Folder to review and annihilate at your leisure.2. Wi-Fi DropoutsSince upgrading to Snow Leopard, my Wi-Fi connection randomly drops for no reason. I still get Wi-Fi reliably on my iPhone, and my wife gets it on her PC. Any advice?This problem seems to be affecting many Snow Leopard users, so we’ve come up with a series of steps that should resolve it. Start with the first and work down until the problem goes away:» Update to Mac OS X 10.6.3 or later.» Restart your modem and router.» Upgrade your router’s firmware to the latest version, particularly if it’s a non-Apple router.» Turn AirPort off then on again from your menu bar.» In your Network System Preference, create a new location and delete all of the previous locations.One of our best tips for troubleshooting Wi-Fi connection problems is to create one brand-new location and then delete all of your previous locations.» Within your new location, drag AirPort to the top of the service order by clicking on the gear icon and choosing “Set Service Order.”» Delete all of your preferred networks. To see your preferred networks, click on AirPort in the left margin, then the Advanced button, then the AirPort tab.» Within that Advanced area, click on the TCP/IP tab and turn off IPv6. Then, go into the DNS tab and make sure that your DNS servers are correct. If in doubt, try Google’s DNS servers of 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.» Run Keychain First Aid in Keychain Access, which is located in your Utilities folder.» Manually change your router’s wireless channel to another channel to avoid interference with other wireless networks. See which channels are being used by other networks with a utility like AirRadar ($20, koingosw.com).» Turn off 802.11n mode on your router, leaving it in 802.11b/g mode only.» Change the security settings on your router from WEP to WPA/WPA2.» Zap the PRAM on your Mac (get instructions here).3. Multitouch GesturesWhy can’t I do the one-finger double-tap to open documents in Snow Leopard?You can absolutely use the one-finger double-tap on your Multi-Touch trackpad to open documents in Snow Leopard. Simply go into your Trackpad System Preference and make sure that “Tap to Click” is checked. Your confusion may also stem from the fact that your Multi-Touch trackpad is capable of understanding many gestures. So if you’ve enabled “Dragging” or “Drag Lock,” you might be holding down your finger too long after the second tap. If you’ve enabled “Secondary Click,” you might be tapping in the wrong area of your trackpad.4. Syncing iPhone PhotosWhen I sync my iPhone, all 6,000 of my MacBook Pro’s photos move to the iPhone--very uncool! How do I remove them from the phone and ensure one-way photo transfers to the Mac in the future?That’s at least 5,950 pictures too many. Just connect your iPhone to your MacBook, then select the iPhone in the iTunes sidebar. Click the Photos tab, where you can choose to transfer none of your pictures or just specific iPhoto Albums, Faces, and Events to your iPhone. Re-sync to apply your new settings and get back a few gigabytes on your iPhone.5. UninstallingMy Mac still runs processes from a program I deleted. How do I delete an application entirely and prevent this from happening?Unfortunately, there’s no standard way to remove a program from your Mac, but some developers simplify the job by including an uninstaller with their application. It may lurk in the main folder of the app you want to terminate--check those subfolders!--or it might be in the original installer itself. Launch the installer and proceed through it carefully. An uninstall feature may be obvious, or it could be hidden among options to customize the installation process. Be sure to quit the program you want to delete before uninstalling it.If an application didn’t come with an uninstaller, then the only way to delete it is to drag it to the Trash. However, this won’t remove preferences and other support files left behind on your Mac. You can use Spotlight to search for the deleted application’s name to find these strays, but if you have a lot of applications to remove, consider investing in a dedicated uninstaller like CleanApp, AppZapper, or AppCleaner. These programs automate the process of zapping unwanted programs--and their stuff--off your drive for good.6. File CompressionI’d like to save hard drive space with the Finder’s Compress command, but I’m not getting useful results. I recently compressed a 117.4MB file to just 116.7MB. Am I doing something wrong?Not all file types can be compressed with the same space-saving results. For example, compressing a ZIP archive won’t make a significantly smaller ZIP file. Some files, such as JPEGs, MP3s, and other media formats, have a certain level of compression already built in, but the sizes of text files and uncompressed image file formats can be dramatically reduced with ZIP compression.7. Remote ControlWhen I use my iPod touch as a remote for my Apple TV, it appears to only give me access to the Apple TV’s library as if it were an iPod. Is there a way to use the iPod touch like the traditional Apple remote? For example, can I use the touch to navigate to the YouTube app and search for videos, or to browse the movie rentals?Apple’s Remote app for the iPhone and iPod touch lets you control the playback of media that you’ve already purchased or downloaded. But for content that doesn’t live on your Apple TV, such as YouTube videos or the iTunes Store, you’ll still need your traditional Apple remote to navigate to those screens. However, the good news is that whenever an onscreen keyboard appears on your Apple TV, the Remote app will display its own keyboard, which lets you quickly type what you’re searching for.8. Photo MigrationCan Faces and Places data in iPhoto ‘09 be moved to another Mac, or do I have to click on all those faces and enter all those locations again?All your vacation sites and friendly faces will transfer to another Mac with OS X’s Migration Assistant, or you can drag your iPhoto library file from your Pictures folder to the same location on a new Mac. When you launch iPhoto on the new machine, you’ll be told the locations of pictures containing GPS data must be retrieved again, but custom locations you’ve entered yourself (for pictures taken with older cameras, say) will remain intact.9. Gmail, Behave!I sync Gmail with OS X’s Mail, but when I delete a message from Mail, it remains in Gmail’s All Mail folder in the sidebar. What’s the right mailbox setting to move a message deleted in Mail to Gmail’s Trash?All your Gmail goes into the All Mail folder, whether or not it’s been recently deleted and no matter which Gmail folder label is attached to the message. Google’s default IMAP Mail settings (available here) are correct, but to send a Mail message directly to Gmail’s Trash, you’ll have to drag it to the [Gmail]/Trash folder in Mail’s sidebar.10. Crash-TasticIt always happens at the worst possible time: I’ll be using my PowerBook G4 when the screen suddenly dims and shows a Rosetta Stone’s worth of languages telling me to restart the computer. Why does this keep happening, and how can I stop it?Ouch. What you’re describing is a kernel panic, a cute name for a not-so-cute problem. An operating system’s kernel acts as a bridge between applications and the computer’s hardware, and kernel panics are the last-ditch efforts of the operating system to recover from serious conflicts between them. The chief causes of kernel panics are faulty RAM and software incompatible with the operating system you’re running. Unfortunately, that range could include any number of bad things that may be happening on your poor PowerBook.Happily, even a kernel panic isn’t the end of the world, and we can offer some pointers to help you figure out what’s wrong. The first step is to look at your Mac’s history. Was there a time when it didn’t get kernel panics? Think back to any (and we mean any) new hardware or software you installed before the panics began. Update or uninstall them one item at a time to isolate the panics’ cause until you narrow down the trouble. Also note which hardware and software you’re using just before they strike--there may be a pattern. Whatever the issue, your Mac isn’t happy, so be sure to back up important files and verify your hard drive with Disk Utility regularly.Next page: Answers Guide continued >>11. Get Zippy iPhone BackupsHow can I speed up iPhone backups so I’ll never have to cancel mid-backup again? They seem to take forever when a couple minutes really should do it.A. First off, keep your iOS software current. Not only will the latest updates squash bugs and add features, they can improve backup times. To update, sync your iPhone, select it in the iTunes sidebar, then go to the Summary tab.B. Pare down the number of applications on your iPhone. Application data like in-app purchases, saved games, and new documents are all backed up when you sync, and that can add up to a long wait while the backup progress bar creeps by. To start cleaning house, connect to iTunes, select the Apps tab, then delete your most infrequently used applications. You’ll lose the data saved in these apps, but you’ll gain speedier backups.Ask yourself this: Are those apps you never use on your iPhone really worth slowing down your backups?C. Sync often. If you sync at least once or twice a day, fewer applications will have new data to back up when you reconnect to iTunes. If you can’t bear to part with any of the applications on your Home Screen, making multiple faster backups will let you keep all your favorite apps at your fingertips.D. Keep Camera Roll clean. While the contents of your iPhone’s photo library aren’t backed up during a sync, the photos, movies, and screenshots in Camera Roll are. Transfer this media to iPhoto as soon as you begin a sync, and delete the files from Camera Roll when the transfer is complete to get this data copied onto your Mac while excluding it from being backed up in iTunes.More photos = slower backups.E. Connect to a USB port on your Mac instead of an external USB hub. Not all USB ports are created equal, and connecting to a powered, full-speed USB port that’s built into your Mac will ensure the fastest possible transfer speeds during backups. That means you can be off to your next port of call quickly, secure in the knowledge that your iPhone data is safe on your computer.F. Before you sync to iTunes, purge unnecessary SMS messages, old call histories, and non-essential files downloaded by apps that store data on your iPhone. For example, if you regularly copy files to your iDisk app or productivity apps like DocsToGo, make sure you’re only carrying what you need before a backup. Odds are these files live elsewhere on your Mac or iDisk, so there’s no need to back them up again.Junk your old, unused files, too.12. Time TravelI’ve been running Time Machine for months in Mac OS 10.6.3, but I’ve never seen instructions about how to go back in time and retrieve information. Help!Mount your backup drive, then launch Time Machine from your Mac’s Applications folder. Your desktop will be replaced by a timeline and Finder windows showing your Mac’s contents as they were in the past. Just click a Finder window (or click within the timeline) to return to a specific date. You can also search within Finder windows for specific filenames, and more. When you find a missing file, select it and click Restore to return to the present with your document.13. Rip Encrypted MoviesI want an easy way to download a DVD to my computer so I can put it on my iPod or iPad. I used to use HandBrake, but that no longer works for encrypted DVDs.HandBrake (free, handbrake.fr) is still the quickest and most reliable tool for directly converting DVDs into video files that will play on your iPod or iPad. But you’ll also need to install VLC (free, videolan.org) if you want to decrypt commercial DVDs. Place both HandBrake and VLC into your Applications folder, and you’ll be able to convert encrypted DVDs with HandBrake once again.14. Dump DiscsI want to go disc-free on my MacBook, but a few of my games require a CD or DVD to play. Is there any way to make OS X think the disc is in the drive when it’s not?OS X’s Disk Utility can make a duplicate of your game’s CD or DVD and save it to your Mac as a file called a disk image. Once created, disk images can be double-clicked to open and mount on your desktop just like a conventional disc (you’ve already seen them in software installers downloaded from the internet). But there are two things to remember: copy-protection schemes on the disc may prevent duplication, and you should have plenty of room on your MacBook’s hard drive before you begin. A DVD’s disk image will take up several gigabytes.To get started, insert the disc you want to dupe, then launch Disk Utility from your Utilities folder. Select the disc in the sidebar, then click New Image in the Disk Utility toolbar, set the image format to DVD/CD Master in the resulting sheet, and save the disk image to your Mac. Next time you want to play your game, double-click the image file, then launch your game normally once the virtual game disc mounts. When you’re finished, you can drag the mounted disc to the Trash to eject like any conventional media, leaving the disk image on your Mac for the next time you want to get your game on.15. Branching OutWhich operating systems—and I mean all of them, not just Mac versions—will run on a PowerPC-based Mac?The PowerPC processor has become something of a museum piece since Apple abandoned it for Intel’s chips, but these Linux distributions can help you breathe new life into G5- and G4-powered Macs. Ubuntu, Yellow Dog, and Fedora all maintain builds that run on PowerPC hardware. When you’re looking to run a worthwhile alternate operating system on older Mac hardware, the penguin has you covered.16. The $1M QuestionWhen will Adobe Flash content be viewable on iPhones and iPads?Never. In April, Steve Jobs had this to say about Flash on Apple’s website: “Flash was created during the PC era--for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low-power devices, touch interfaces, and open web standards--all areas where Flash falls short.”17. iLife OopsI accidentally deleted iMovie and the Apple Loops that came with GarageBand. Can I reload them from the original disc without losing all my other iLife files?Sure! First, launch the iLife ‘09 installer from your disc. At the bottom of the final screen is a Customize button that lets you install iLife components individually. Click it, then select the items you want to reinstall. The installer will insist on installing GarageBand along with your missing loops, but your missing applications and files will return to your Mac without affecting other iLife applications and documents, including GarageBand preferences. Just remember to run Software Update afterward to ensure that everything’s up to date.18. iPad PrintingWhat are the best ways to print from the iPad?Until Apple decides to build printing into iOS, there unfortunately isn’t a “best” way--although there are several apps in the App Store that might meet your needs.Canon’s Easy-PhotoPrint for iPhone runs on the iPad and will print photos to certain Canon printers. And the App Store is full of plenty of third-party apps that promise printing from your iPad, although in our experience the results are decidedly mixed. PrintBureau ($12.99) searches your network for shared printers. It reliably printed to one--but not another--of the printers on our home network without any intervention. There’s an optional free helper application you can run on a Mac to give PrintBureau access to your printers (a solution common to several iPad printing apps), but we’d hardly call that true iPad printing.We also had success with Air Sharing HD ($9.99), which is packed with features for moving and sharing files with your iPad. It didn’t work immediately with our Wi-Fi–enabled printer, but turning on Printer Sharing on our Mac made all our printers visible to the app. But--like using a companion app--that also requires that you have a Mac running. Ultimately, the least fiddly solution often ends up being emailing yourself a document and printing from a computer. Hopefully Apple has something better in the pipeline…19. Tame BookmarksI have tons of Safari bookmarks on my Mac. I don’t want them all on my iPhone, but Apple only allows syncing of all or none. Is there a fix?It’s almost elegant. Xmarks (xmarks.com) syncs bookmarks across multiple browsers, and its profiles let you decide which bookmarks appear on specific devices, including your iPhone. Best of all, you can view (and even search) them in a layout formatted for Mobile Safari. Just sign up for Xmarks, follow their instructions, and disable iPhone bookmark syncing in iTunes. Unfortunately, Xmarks doesn’t sync new bookmarks made on your iPhone back to your Mac. Like we said…almost elegant.Next page: Answers Guide continued >>20. Stay SafeHow can I tell if someone is using my Wi-Fi?Elementary, my dear Wi-Fi user! The mystery’s solution lies in MAC (Media Access Control) addresses, which are unique codes that identify network devices. Different routers have different ways of showing which addresses (and thus, devices) are accessing your network. If you have an AirPort router, launch AirPort Utility from your Utilities folder, double-click your router’s icon, then click the Advanced icon in the resulting window. Click Logging and Statistics, then Logs and Statistics. In the Wireless Clients section, you’ll see a graph showing the address of each device connecting to your network. The list will include your Mac, the AirPort router itself, and any other computers, iPhones, game consoles, or other devices using your Wi-Fi connection. Next, match the MAC addresses to your network devices. We’ll get you started: your computer’s address can be found in the Network section of System Profiler. When you’re finished, you’ll know the addresses of devices you want on your network, so you can tell when something with a foreign address is using your Wi-Fi. Then the game’s afoot!21. Sim-plifyI have a 1G iPhone that I want to use as a simple iPod touch, leaving aside the phone features entirely, but I don’t have the original SIM card. What are my options?Your options are slim. Unlike later models, the 1G iPhone requires a SIM card to operate as a basic iPod, even after AT&T service has been terminated or transferred to another phone. You can get a new SIM card from AT&T, but this will require signing up for a new phone service contract. Unfortunately, there’s no way around this limitation besides jailbreaking your iPhone with one of the methods floating around on the internet.22. Merge PartitionsIs there any way to un-partition a non-boot hard drive in OS 10.6 without wiping the data?You’re in luck. Since 10.5, OS X’s Disk Utility has been able to add and remove partitions from disks without affecting other data on the drive. However, Disk Utility won’t merge data from the deleted partition to another partition on the drive, so back up all your data--especially files on the partition you’ll be removing--before you begin.Once all your data’s securely backed up, launch Disk Utility from your Mac’s Utilities folder, then select the drive in the sidebar (be sure to choose the icon noting the drive’s capacity, not just its name). Click the Partition button, then in the shaded box showing the drive’s Volume Scheme, select the partition you want to remove. Click the minus button below the Volume Scheme chart to remove the partition (don’t worry, it won’t disappear right away). Click and drag other partitions to resize them and fill the empty space that will be left behind by the deleted partition. You can also click the plus button to add a new partition that can also be resized. Click Apply to commit your changes and begin Operation: Un-partition.23. No ScratchingI just bought a new 21.5” iMac (late 2009 model) and found a serious design flaw: the CD slot has sharp aluminum edges that can inflict permanent, irreversible scratches to valuable CDs. Help!These days, Apple’s really into razor-sharp edges. For example, the unibody MacBooks also famously have sharp edges where users rest their wrists, and those very same sharp edges have made it onto the slot on the side of the iMac where CDs are loaded. Luckily, those sharp edges are just on the outside, not on the internal drive itself. So if you carefully and slowly slide in your CD without touching the outside edges, you may avoid scratching your CD. But here’s a more practical solution: Put electrical tape around the edges of the slot. This isn’t the most beautiful thing to look at, but it’s almost guaranteed to keep scratches at bay. Another option would be to purchase an external CD drive to either use as your primary CD drive or to make copies of your valuable CDs. That way, if a CD gets scratched, at least it’s not the original.24. Font FixesWhen using Mail, any font that I use in my outgoing email always shows up on recipient PCs as Courier--that archaic, typewriter style font. How can I get my Mac fonts to translate onto PCs?In order for a font to be successfully seen on somebody’s computer, they need to already have that particular font installed on their machine. If your recipient doesn’t have the same exact font as you, their computer will substitute your font with a font that is already installed on their system. This applies to emails, websites, Word documents, almost anything. If maintaining the integrity of fonts is important to you, you’ll need to create PDF files or images and attach them to your outgoing email message.25. App-Update ErrorsWhen I try to update apps from my iPhone, I get a “Cannot Connect to iTunes Store” error, yet I have no problem downloading new apps, and no problem updating them in iTunes on my computer. What gives?Assuming the problem is reoccurring and not a freaky networking accident, it sounds like your iPhone (or the problematic apps themselves) may be confused about the status of your iTunes account. This could be because a different user has logged into your iPhone, because you have multiple usernames or passwords tied to your iTunes account, or even because your billing information was recently changed on another device. The easiest place to start is by navigating to Settings, tapping Store, and confirming that yours is the currently active account on your iPhone. If it is, try signing out and signing back in with your most recent iTunes account information, then verify that your address and billing information are correct. If the problem persists, the apps may the culprit. Try updating them in iTunes, then deleting them from your iPhone. Reconnect your iPhone to your computer to sync the updated apps back to the phone. If, down the road, these same applications refuse to update from your iPhone again, deleting them from your Mac and re-downloading them from the iTunes Store may fix this.26. Make Windows BehaveI have various finder windows set to appear in different views depending on their content. But certain windows stubbornly--and randomly--refuse to remember my preferences. Is it a bug, or am I missing a setting?Setting a specific folder to open in a particular view (such as columns, icons, or lists) can make browsing files in the Finder a lot easier. Just open and set each folder to your preferred view, then select View > Show View Options in the menu bar and check the topmost button in the resulting window to force the Finder window to always open in that view. Unfortunately, the Finder has ignored these helpful preferences since the earliest days of OS X. Your stubborn folders aren’t the first!Your folders may be confused by corrupt .DS_Store files, the invisible files created by the Finder to store icon sizes, window backgrounds, and more. System utility apps like TinkerTool and Cocktail can reveal or delete these files for you, or you can use the Terminal to delete them yourself if your UNIX Fu is strong.If those options don’t do the trick, your Mac may think you don’t have permission to reset the view options of certain folders. Some, like the Applications folder, don’t technically “belong” to any user except the system itself, and only the system (also known as the root user) can make permanent changes to these directories. What looks like random stubbornness may be OS X remembering that it’s in charge of these folders, not you.To show your Mac who’s boss, log in as the root user, then set uncooperative folders to the view setting you prefer. Just be careful, and remember to log back into your normal user account and disable root access when the job is done. Moving or deleting the wrong files while logged in as root can have serious consequences for your Mac. Apple explains how to log in as root here.27. Just Open!I used to double-click any photo, and it would open in Photoshop. When I installed 10.6, this feature disappeared. Now I have to drop the photos onto the Photoshop icon.Snow Leopard ignores “creator codes,” which changed its file-opening behavior--it’s all about file extensions now. Right-click a JPG, choose Get Info, and under Open With, choose Photoshop, and click Change All. Do this again for PNG, PSD, TIF, and any other photo file types you want Photoshop to get first dibs on.28. iPads Kill Wi-FiWhen enough of us use iPads on the office Wi-Fi, it can crash the Wi-Fi itself! I’ve heard this is a common problem--is there a fix?You’ve heard right, and it’ll take an OS and/or firmware update from Apple to vanquish this annoying glitch. Until then, know that the issue is caused because an iPad can stop renewing its DHCP lease when it goes to sleep, so if you set your iPad to never sleep (Settings > General > Auto-Lock > Never), you’re good. That’s hardly ideal, and at Mac|Life HQ, we set up an iPad-only Wi-Fi network, which creates a smaller pool of DHCP leases and keeps the main Wi-Fi network safe. Interestingly, iPads are also prone to other Wi-Fi glitches, like sketchy signal strength, frequent drops, and slow speeds. Bizarrely, one of the first things you should do is increase the brightness upward and turn off the Auto Brightness option (Settings > Brightness & Wallpaper). We can only guess that something’s screwy with iPad power management…29. Mac Pros Are HotI just wanted to bring to your attention a widespread, frustrating issue that exists with all 2009 Mac Pros. Whenever you play any audio, the CPU rapidly heats up (core temperatures as high as 90ºC, CPU heat sink 60ºC). This problem exists in 10.5 and 10.6, but does not happen in Windows running in Boot Camp, so it appears to be a Mac OS X bug. And after spending $8,000 on Apple’s top machine, I feel like I have been had.Yes, this seems to be a prevalent problem with the 2009 Mac Pros. Playing any type of audio heats up the Pro precariously close to--but not quite at--dangerous heat levels. If your Mac actually reached dangerous heat levels, it would shut itself down. This increased heat also causes decreased performance. Unfortunately, we don’t have any solutions for you, but we’re publishing your letter in the hopes that greater publicity on this issue will help get a speedy resolution from Apple.Next page: Answers Guide continued >>30. What a Mess!One of my co-workers spilled juice on his older MacBook Pro, and now the keys are sticky (when pressed down, they don’t pop up right away). What’s the best way to clean up?Sounds nasty! Although this particular spill has long dried, we’ll start these cleanup instructions from the moment right after spillage to make them more widely useful. So: Immediately power down, disconnect the power cord from the MacBook, and remove the battery (if it’s removable). After doing as much as you can with paper or cloth towels, turn the machine over with the lid partly open to allow the liquid to drain, making sure that the laptop doesn’t close all the way. Give it about 72 hours to completely air dry and then take apart the machine to thoroughly clean the innards. The website iFixIt.com has great step-by-step guides to taking the keys off and getting your MacBook back to normal. When dabbing at disassembled keys and other parts, we recommend a bit of gauze lightly dampened with rubbing alcohol.31. Airport FizzlesI stream my music from iTunes to an AirPort router, but it frequently cuts out. What can I do?First, make sure your iTunes and AirPort software are up to date. If the problem persists, move your router away from possible sources of interference. Wi-Fi is convenient, but it’s not an exact science. Signals can be impeded by microwaves, wireless phones, thick masonry, and more. If dropouts continue, try changing the channel on which your AirPort broadcasts in the Wireless tab of the AirPort section of AirPort Utility.32. Family PlanningMy wife and I have our own iPhones and iTunes accounts, and we’re adding an iPad to the happy family. Can we sync both iPhones and the iPad (plus our Apple TV) to a single iTunes account, and share our apps on all devices without affecting our current library and future purchases?Bad news first: there’s no way to merge multiple iTunes accounts into one, so your family will have to keep juggling separate accounts and purchases from your iPhones, Apple TV, and bouncing baby iPad. The good news is that apps, like DRM-protected movies and TV shows, can be used on up to five authorized computers and the iDevices that sync to them. Just open iTunes, select Apps in the sidebar, then drag iPhone applications you want to share from iTunes to a networked computer or removable hard drive. Select File > Add to Library in iTunes on the second authorized computer, then choose the exported apps to load them into that computer’s library. These apps won’t retain saved data from the original computer, but otherwise they’ll be fully operational and can be updated normally. Apple TV purchases, however, will still be tethered to one of your computers. But even these files can be synced and transferred to multiple computers and iDevices.Here’s the better news: Home Sharing, introduced in iTunes 9, simplifies this process by allowing users to drag and drop media to shared computers within iTunes. Activate Home Sharing by selecting Advanced > Turn On Home Sharing. Repeat this step on all your computers, entering one iTunes account username and password on each. Then you can drag media from shared libraries in iTunes’ sidebar into a computer’s local library at will. Future purchases can be shared automatically by clicking the Settings button at the bottom of Home Sharing iTunes library, then selecting which media you’d like to share. Once you set up all computers on your network, syncing works automatically, zapping new media off to each machine.33. Double the AddressesWhy do I have duplicate Contact entries on my iPhone but not on my Mac?Odds are your iPhone has gained multiple groups of contacts after syncing them both wirelessly through MobileMe and through iTunes when you connected your iPhone to your Mac. Whatever the cause, check your iPhone Contact app’s Groups. If you see a group named From My Mac in addition to groups you’ve created in OS X’s Address Book, it’s a sign your iPhone thinks you have two distinct sets of friends.It's hard enough to find the contact you're looking for--who needs duplicate entries?To fix the problem, first back up your Mac’s contact data. Connect your iPhone to iTunes, uncheck Sync Address Book Contacts in the Info tab, then re-sync. If that doesn’t remove the extra contacts, turn off MobileMe contact syncing in Settings on your iPhone, choosing to delete the existing contacts on your phone. Next, turn Contact syncing back on, and choose to merge MobileMe’s data onto your iPhone if asked. Now you should have just one set of contacts shared between your iPhone and Mac. You’ll have half the friends, but half the hassles.34. Conquer SyncingWhat's the most elegant way to sync iTunes libraries between work and home computers?We use SuperSync, a program that lets you sync your iTunes library among multiple computers on local networks or over the Internet. SuperSync’s busy interface can seem a little daunting, but in just a few quick steps, you can start copying music from your crib to your cubicle and back again. Casual Fridays will never be the same.A. Buy the SoftwareSuperSync looks and feels kinda like iTunes, but is a whole different beast.To get started, you’ll need a copy of SuperSync running on both your home and work computers. Two licenses will set you back $24, or you can snag ten for $34 and give one to your manager for Boss’s Day.B. Make the ConnectionsWhen you first launch SuperSync on your home Mac, it loads and displays your iTunes library in an iTunes-alike window organized by genre, artist, and playlist. While SuperSync may look a little like iTunes (and it can even play some unprotected audio files), it’s really a conduit and control panel for syncing, not a jukebox. Your DRM-protected files must still be played by an authorized copy of iTunes, although SuperSync will transfer them just fine.SuperSync can even keep metadata updated across different Macs.If your music collection doesn’t live in your Mac’s Home folder, you can point SuperSync to a library stored on a remote or network drive and share from there. To set up sharing, just check the obvious boxes and enter a password in the application’s Network preferences. While you’re there, you can fine-tune what you sync and how. For instance, you can keep specific media types--all videos, for instance--out of your shared library and pick which metadata changes will be synced back to your home machine. Whether you simply want to copy files or meticulously update their play counts, ratings, and more across your computers, SuperSync has your back.C. Start the SyncTo sync your library, install and launch SuperSync on your work machine, then turn on sharing and connect to your home computer. This is easiest (and fastest) on a local network, but you can sync your music over the internet by manually forwarding ports on your home router, or by using a UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) router and letting SuperSync do the work for you.When the syncing starts, SuperSync's interface gets pretty busy.Once you get both computers talking to each other, you can synchronize your entire library in one go, sync individual files, or transfer albums, artists, and whole genres at once. You can even sync your playlists--both their music files and the lists themselves in the iTunes sidebar. Naturally, files added to iTunes on your work computer can be synced back to your home Mac. Just finish your download in iTunes, then phone home with SuperSync. New files will be noted automatically and can be transferred with a click.35. Hot FlashMy MacBook Pro has been acting strangely. It will become sluggish, get hot, and the fans will come on at full speed. Activity Monitor shows that a process called “PTMD” is taking over 60 percent of my CPU. How do I prevent PTMD from taking over my Mac?This may not be a common question, but it certainly is a burning one! According to Apple’s Mac OS X Reference Library, PTMD stands for “platform thermal monitor daemon,” and it communicates any OS notifications effecting thermal conditions to your hardware. This daemon is supposed to automatically quit itself when it’s done communicating, but apparently your Mac erroneously thinks that its thermal conditions are continuously changing, so it’s trying to let your hardware continuously know this incorrect information.This seems to be a new problem that has cropped up for some users in Mac OS 10.6.3, so hopefully it will be fixed in a future update to the operating system. In the meantime, you can manually quit out of PTMD in Activity Monitor (launch it from your Utilities folder) whenever it starts acting up. You may also try resetting your Mac’s System Management Controller, which is responsible for thermal management (follow the directions here).36. It's a RAIDI have Apple’s RAID card in my Mac Pro, and it always pops up this error message: “Write cache disabled due to insufficient battery charge.” But...what is a RAID card, and what should I do?Apple's Mac Pro RAID Card improves RAID performance and reliability.RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent/Inexpensive Disks, and it’s a tech that lets you combine multiple hard drives so they appear as one. RAIDs can either be mirrored or striped--in the first, each drive is an exact copy (or mirror) of the other drives, so if one fails, you’ll still have all of your data intact on another (known as redundancy). If you configure your drives as a striped RAID, the storage space of all of your drives is added together into one larger drive. This will give you increased performance and increased storage space, but no redundancy unless you’ve configured your RAID with parity handling (which uses a portion of each drive to hold identical copies of data from one of the other drives). RAIDs can be controlled by software like Apple’s Disk Utility or the excellent SoftRAID ($129, softraid.com), or they can be controlled by hardware like your RAID card. The main advantages of a hardware-controlled RAID are increased performance and reliability. With the error message you’re receiving, it sounds like the battery on your RAID card has died, so take it into Apple to get replaced.37. iPad 2What upgrades will we see in the next version of the iPad? (We emailed a trio of well-known tech experts for their predictions.)Daniel LyonsNewsweek"I'd guess the following:» Front-facing camera for videoconferencing» Multitasking (duh, already announced)» Higher-resolution screen» No Flash» Gorgeous ads that will change your life» Unicorn tears"Christopher NullYahoo! News, Technology"Dual cameras--a front-facing camera for videoconferencing will be huge for opening up a whole new market for the iPad."Dylan TweneyWired"One of the things most obviously missing from the current iPad is a webcam. This would instantly transform the iPad into a videophone, and its size—just slightly bigger than the human face—would be perfect for face-to-face video chats. It’s also likely that the next iPad will have more memory and a faster processor. If we’re lucky, it might have an HDMI port too, so you can hook it up to a TV to show off photos, videos, and apps. One thing it definitely won’t have, though, is support for Adobe Flash. That door is closed, probably forever."38. Mac Van WinkleWhen I wake my MacBook Pro from sleep, it doesn’t connect to my Wi-Fi. Sometimes it even forgets the Wi-Fi password. How the heck do I get it to remember?First, check out the extensive troubleshooting steps that we gave in Question #2 to see if any of those ideas solve your problem. Beyond that, your problem may be caused by one of the following issues:» Two Wi-Fi networks with the same SSID (wireless network name). For example, do you connect to one wireless router that’s named “Linksys” at work and then another router that’s named “Linksys” at home? If so, your Mac may be trying to apply the password from one router to the other router. Rename one of the wireless networks.» Keychain problems. Launch Keychain Access (in Utilities) and delete any AirPort Network password entries for the wireless networks that are giving you problems.» Preferred Networks problem. Go into your Network System Preference, click on AirPort, then the Advanced button, then the AirPort tab. Delete any unused networks, and drag your current network to the top of the list.» Corrupt preference file. Trash the file located at Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist and restart your Mac.» Security incompatibilities. Try changing the type of wireless security on your router (for example, WPA instead of WEP).» Wireless interference. Turn on interference robustness on your router or change the wireless channel.» Your system may need a general maintenance. Run Disk Warrior on your machine, repair permissions with Disk Utility, empty the caches, and run the UNIX maintenance scripts with Cocktail.39. Style ManualWhat exactly does Steve wear on a daily basis?We asked our team of fashion experts, and they said, “The same dang thing no matter what.” So we made them stalk the streets of Cupertino and watch hours of keynote footage to bring you the scoop on Steve’s sartorial secrets. That’ll show ’em.Next page: Answers Guide continued >>40. Sad MacMy iMac flat-out freezes when I try to wake it from sleep. I ran DiskTools Pro, which verified and repaired my hard drive, but it still hangs after waking from sleep.This is often a symptom of a failing graphics card or a failing logic board inside your Mac, in which case you would need to take your Mac into an Apple Authorized Service Provider for repair. However, before assuming the worst, you can perform a series of basic troubleshooting steps to rule out other variables that may be causing this symptom.» External devices: When your Mac fails to wake from sleep, try unplugging any external hard drives or peripherals to see if doing so makes your Mac suddenly wake from sleep. If so, those external devices may be to blame. » RAM: You may also have bad RAM inside your machine. You can try to pinpoint bad RAM by either removing one of your RAM chips and see if the problem continues, or by running the Apple Hardware Test to see if it can identify any bad RAM. To run the Apple Hardware Test, take a look at the DVDs that came with your Mac; one of them will say that the Apple Hardware Test is on it. Insert that DVD and restart your Mac while holding down the D key on your keyboard. » Reset your Mac’s System Management Controller (get instructions here).Next, try to rule out the software problems: » Trash the following files and then restart your Mac: Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.AutoWake.plist and Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist » Reboot your Mac in single-user mode and run fsck (file system check)--get instructions here. » Back up your Mac, then erase and install Mac OS X.If all of these steps fail, it's time, sadly, to bring your Mac into an Apple Authorized Service Provider.41. Stop TimeWhen Time Machine is running, my Mac virtually comes to a stop. What is happening, and what should I do?Any time an application such as Time Machine is actively reading or writing to a hard drive, you may notice a tiny bit of a speed loss if you’re also trying to access your hard drive as well because the read/write heads take time to physically move to different locations on the hard drive platter.However, the key phrase is “a tiny bit of a speed loss,” meaning that the speed loss should be negligible to most computer users. Time Machine is designed to be fast and extremely lightweight, so if your computer is actually coming to a standstill, then something else is going on. The best way to troubleshoot this is by eliminating variables. First, make sure that you do not have any virus software scanning your backup drive. This is a known factor that could slow down your Time Machine backups to a crawl and that may affect your computer’s overall speed as well.Then, eliminate the possibility that your backup drive has a hardware problem by swapping it out with a different backup drive. If you don’t have another drive handy, a utility such as Drive Genius ($99, prosofteng.com) or Disk Warrior ($99, alsoft.com) can help you sniff out failing hard drives. Your backup drive must also be partitioned properly, as explained at tinyurl.com/3zne68.Next, use a different backup program like ChronoSync to see if the slowdowns continue. If they do, ChronoSync will let you see which file is actively being backed up while the problem is happening. It could indicate a problem with that particular file or with your internal hard drive.Other than that, you can try some general tips to speed up your Mac overall: Upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard; purchase faster internal and external drives (7200 RPM or SSD); use a faster connection interface (eSATA or FireWire 800); add more RAM to your Mac; and turn off hard disk sleep in the Energy Saver System Preference (this last one has a huge impact if your hard drive is powered via USB only and has no separate AC power).42. Display DespairWhy has Apple used so many display interfaces recently, and is the current Mini DisplayPort standard the best tech for the job?Mini DisplayPort meets VGA with this adapter.Apple’s flirtation with different video interfaces makes it seem like a puppet of the International Dongle Cartel, but it’s really all about doing more with ever-shrinking video ports. That includes today’s Mini DisplayPort, which can carry video and audio and connects to VGA, DVI, or HDMI displays at resolutions up to 2560x1600. We’re not sure if that makes it the best technology, but if it lets us carry just one small adapter that works on both MacBooks and iMacs, we’re happy.43. Feelin' SocialDoes Apple have a Twitter account or Facebook page of any sort whatsoever?YouTube has your favorite Apple commercials.Steve may be cool with answering emails, but the company isn’t too keen on Twitter. There is no official Apple Twitter account. Facebook is a bit more complicated. While Apple hasn’t set up an official company page, it has created an App Store Facebook page: facebook.com/AppStore. Our preferred destination, though, is the Apple YouTube channel, which lets us check out all of our favorite Apple commercials: youtube.com/apple.44. Feelin' BluWhen will Apple include USB 3.0 and Blu-ray in Macs? What’s taking so long?USB 3.0 gear is already trickling onto the market, so it’s probably just a matter of time before the first computers sporting the blazing new standard roll out of Cupertino. Unfortunately, Blu-ray is another story. Apple’s interest in promoting its HD iTunes movie downloads and Steve’s declaration that bringing Blu-ray to the Mac is “a bag of hurt” don’t bode well for Blu’s chances on the Mac.45. Photo DownloadsThere seems to be no way to download my photos from my iPhone directly to my Mac without using iPhoto. Even then, I have to drill down through some crazy iPhoto directories in the Finder just to copy the photos somewhere else. Can’t I just pull these photos off my iPhone and put them wherever I want?Any photos that are in iPhoto can be easily and quickly copied somewhere else on your Mac simply by dragging and dropping them out of iPhoto. For even more control over the size, format, and name of your photos, use the File > Export command in iPhoto. You don’t need to--and you really shouldn’t--be drilling down into any iPhoto directories on your Mac.Now, onto your next question of bypassing iPhoto altogether. In Mac OS 10.6, the Image Capture application gives you a significant amount of control over what happens when you connect your iPhone. If you have multiple cameras or iPhones, Image Capture even lets you set different preferences for each individual camera.Image Capture is the place to go to directly download photos from your cameras or to set what happens whenever you connect your cameras.You could have your iPhone launch Image Capture itself, which lets you manually download your photos into the directories of your choice and then delete those photos from the iPhone. You could have your iPhone launch Preview, which lets you import iPhone photos from the File menu. You could have your iPhone run an AppleScript.But perhaps best of all, your iPhone could launch AutoImporter, a hidden application that automatically imports photos to the directory of your choice, without you intervening at all. It’s located at Macintosh HD/System/Library/Image Capture/Support/Application/AutoImporter, and you can set this application’s preferences by choosing AutoImporter > Preferences.46. Tame MobileMeI have four Apple devices: two MacBooks, an iPhone, and an iPad. It would be wonderful if MobileMe would do its job and sync all of my calendar and contact information, but I continually have glitches. One of the devices will often stop syncing, and then I have to wipe out data and start all over again. Is there any way to alleviate these problems?We’ve heard from an Apple support representative that syncing problems with MobileMe are very common because the MobileMe servers are not yet robust enough to handle more than 1,000 synchronizations before everything needs to be reset from scratch again. While 1,000 synchronizations might sound like a lot, consider that a sync takes place every single time you make a change to a contact or a calendar. The good news, however, is that this same representative told us that Apple is aware of its MobileMe syncing shortcomings and is continuously working to increase the competency of its servers.In the meantime, if you want to stick with MobileMe syncing, your best bet for solving the glitches you’re experiencing would be to follow our extensive guide from our November 2009 issue (or find it online here--scroll down to #37) on how to reset your MobileMe syncing from scratch on all of your devices.Alternatively, you may want to ditch MobileMe altogether and explore alternatives such as the web-based calendaring and contact solutions from Google, which can synchronize to your iPhone and iPad using Google Sync (google.com/mobile/sync). On your Mac, you can synchronize to Google using Spanning Sync ($25 for one year, spanningsync.com) or use the built-in (but more limited) syncing tools within Snow Leopard’s Address Book and iCal.If you have an extra Mac that you can use as a server machine, you can even take syncing into your own hands by using a product like Apple’s Snow Leopard Server ($499, apple.com) or the outstanding Kerio Connect ($540, kerio.com).47. The Other TeamI’m running Windows 7 on my Mac using Boot Camp. How do I maintain my computer so both the Mac and Windows platforms stay healthy? And how can I make a clone of my computer that captures both?For tips on how to keep your Windows 7 partition healthy, you’ll want to turn to our sister magazine Maximum PC (this is a good place to start), where you’ll find the experts on all things PC-related. Although conventional wisdom about PCs dictates that you’ll want to defragment your Windows hard drive regularly and immediately install antivirus software on your Windows partition, those are two things that Mac users are not required to do.Your Mac will continue to maintain its health as long as all those hundreds of thousands of Windows viruses can’t reach your Mac files from within the Windows 7 environment. And they won’t be able to since Boot Camp only allows you to read your Mac partition but not write to it.If you gotta run Windows 7, Boot Camp can get it done on your Mac.However, if you install a program like MacDrive 8 ($49, mediafour.com), you’ll have full read and write access to your Mac partition...and so will all those Windows viruses. So be doubly sure to have antivirus software on your PC side.To clone your entire computer, you’ll need to make two clones: one for your Mac partition and one for your Windows partition. For the Mac partition, use a tool like SuperDuper ($28, shirt-pocket.com) or Carbon Copy Cloner (donations requested, bombich.com). For your Windows partition, we recommend Winclone (donations requested, twocanoes.com).48. Log Me OutMy iMac has separate user accounts for my wife and me, plus a Guest Account for when we have parties and people are drawn to the 27-inch screen to play. Can the Mac automatically return to the login screen after some period of inactivity? I don’t want guests to have access to our accounts, and I don’t want my wife to have to remember to log out when she’s finished. I just want it to go back to the login screen to force the next person to log in as a user or guest.No problem--head to System Preferences > Security and check the box for Log Out After X Minutes of Activity, setting X to be any number you like. While you’re there, make sure Disable Automatic Login is checked too. That way, the login screen always appears when you start up, instead of a default administrator account.The auto-logout option is in System Preferences > Security.It’s also easy to lock down the Guest Account with System Preferences > Parental Controls, which lets you select which applications will be available. By default any files in a Guest Account’s Home folder are deleted when they log out, but you could park an alias in the Dock to a shared folder on your hard drive, called, say, “Save Stuff Here.” While you’re sprucing up the Dock, add some big, pretty icons for party-startin’ apps like Photo Booth and Camera Bag.Set up a Guest Account with System Preferences > Accounts, then manage--or spy on--it with Parental Controls.49. SilenceHow do I disable voice control on my iPhone 3GS? I never use it, and it's annoying when it's in my pocket and accidentally activates.Good news: You can shut off Voice Control dialing. Bad news: Voice Control everything else stays on. To shut down Voice Control dialing, you need to turn on the Passcode Lock option for your iPhone. To do this and turn off Voice Control Dialing, navigate to Settings > General > Passcode Lock. Once you turn on Passcode Lock, you can turn off Voice Dial.50. Behind the Black ShirtWhat does it take to become a Genius Bar technician?There are fewer great occupations in life than working at the Genius Bar. Think about it: When someone asks you what you do for a living, you get to tell them that you’re a Genius. On top of that, you get to manhandle Apple computers all day long, dealing with situations like figuring out what in the heck is going on with a MacBook that a carpenter impaled with his drill (remember to tell him it’s no longer under warranty). Check out our handy chart to see what it takes to become a Genius Bar employee.A. Get Smart!First things first: You gotta have plenty of knowledge about past and present Apple products. Geniuses must know hardware ranging across entire generations of Apple products, as well as software offered for all of the latest operating systems. After all, you never know what to expect when you work at the bar. For all you know, a customer might bring in their Performa 460 and ask you to transfer their hard drive data to one of those newfangled Mac Pros.B. Be Happy--and DiscreetEmployees at the Apple Store must be like employees at Disneyland--you’re in the Happiest Place on Earth, so smile…and keep your lips zipped tight about any advance knowledge of upcoming Apple products you might have. Or else.C. Magic HandsBefore you can get your hands on customers’ gear, you need to get trained. A lot. Applying to be a Genius begins with a battery of tech questions--and we’re not talking the ins and outs of GarageBand, either. Applicants are expected to have deep knowledge about how to diagnose and fix serious hardware and software issues--after all, most of their job involves coping with damaged or seriously broken gear. Survive that hurdle, and it’s off to Cupertino for four weeks of sessions that include acquiring three Apple certifications (OS, Desktop, and Portable) and practice time with fake customers who are really good at being a pain in your backside. After that, the apprenticeship continues in a real live Apple Store for as much as another month before you become true blue Genius material.D. Black is BossThe shirt color is an essential part of working in the Apple store. The shirt depicts what department you work in and makes it so that customers know who exactly the Geniuses are who can help them with their waterlogged iPhone.E. Load-BearingCan you diagnose a problem and solve it within 15 minutes? The Geniuses at the Bar can. Appointments taken at the back of the store are only supposed to take as long as it takes to get you halfway through your favorite sitcom, which ensures that even stores with heavy traffic volumes have a chance to help everyone out.

  • ★ The iPad

    Back in December, here’s how I concluded my piece on what I expected from Apple’s then-still-unannounced tablet: If you’re thinking The Tablet is just a big iPhone, or just Apple’s take on the e-reader, or just a media player, or just anything, I say you’re thinking too small — the equivalent of thinking that the iPhone was going to be just a click wheel iPod that made phone calls. I think The Tablet is nothing short of Apple’s reconception of personal computing. After the iPad was announced, I got two types of emails from readers. The first group saying they were disappointed, because they had been hoping I was right that The Tablet would be Apple’s reconception of personal computing. The second group wrote to tell me how excited they were because I was right that The Tablet would be Apple’s reconception of personal computing. Count me in with the second group. Apple hasn’t thought of everything with iPad, but what they’ve thought about, they’ve thought about very deeply. I got mine Saturday morning, and I’ve been using it since — or at least as often as I could get it away from my son. Here are my thoughts. The Big Picture The whole thing feels fast fast fast. The only thing that feels slow overall, so far, is web page rendering. Not because it’s slower than the iPhone — it’s not, it’s definitely much faster — but because it’s so much slower than my MacBook Pro. It’s easy to forget on modern PC-class hardware just how computationally expensive HTML rendering is. The funny thing is, the iPad, in raw CPU terms, is a far slower machine than a modern Mac. But the iPad is running a lightweight OS and lightweight apps. It’s like a slower runner with a lighter backpack who can win a race against a faster runner wearing a heavier backpack. Thus, many of the things you do are faster, or at least feel faster (which is what matters), on the iPad than the Mac. Like, for example, launching applications. The built-in apps, and many of the third-party apps I’ve been using the most, are ready to use within a moment of launching them. (Games tend not to load instantly, but that’s true on high-power consoles like Xbox and PS3, too.) There’s something fundamentally strange about how fast the iPad feels considering how underpowered it is versus a modern PC or Mac. How can a computer with so much less CPU speed feel faster? What Apple has done is re-think several fundamental aspects. The iPad was designed from the ground up with a different set of priorities. I think Tim Bray summarizes it well: For a 1Ghz device with limited memory, the iPad is unreasonably fast. I suspect this accounts for a whole bunch of the “Wow!” reaction the iPad obviously provokes. Since there’s no free lunch, I think it’s really important that we understand what they sacrificed to get that performance. My bet would be on some combination of windowing and virtual memory. I tend to work on lots of things at once, but in fact I look at things in rapid succession, my eyes can really only focus on one thing at one time. Given sufficiently fast switching, maybe we all ought to be getting less WIMPy. The iPad (and iPhone OS across all devices) does indeed lack virtual memory. The only memory is honest-to-god RAM. RAM is fast, virtual memory is slow. The tradeoff is that without virtual memory, the iPad can do far less at once, but what it does do is never going to require hitting virtual memory. Without a windowing system, drawing is simpler and faster. Apple has made other significantly different tradeoffs as well. Battery life on the iPad is simply stunning. Reviewers across the board are getting real-life results that beat Apple’s promise of 10 hours of battery life. This is a function both of software (which does less and works hard to keep the CPU from drawing power while the iPad is being used) and hardware — iFixit’s teardown shows that, internally, the iPad looks more like a battery with a computer than a computer with a battery. The iPad, so far, never gets warm. Browse a bunch of web sites. Play some video. Play a game. It still feels as cool to the touch as when it’s turned off. It is also dead quiet — no fan, no humming, nada. This is the future of computing. The iPad was designed with an entirely different set of priorities than Macs or PCs. Someone may well produce a worthy iPad rival in the next year, but it’s not going to be something like HP’s Slate that runs Windows 7, an operating system that epitomizes the traditional set of computer design priorities. The iPad is also eminently affordable. $500 for this thing seems hard to believe. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it at double the price. But clearly there were tradeoffs involved to hit this price point. Build quality is not one — the thing feels perfect in hand. But it only has 256 MB of RAM — perhaps the single biggest hardware weakness of the device (see the section on Safari below). It is super high-quality, but clearly designed for the mass market. Anyone who thinks Apple only makes high-priced products has completely lost sense of reality. “Affordable luxury” is the sweet spot for mass market success today, and Apple keeps shooting bulls eyes. In fact, the only thing that makes my heart ache regarding the iPad is when I start imagining a hypothetical Pro model — imagine what Apple could put in an iPad that cost as much as a MacBook Pro. (My dream iPad Pro: double the display’s pixel resolution and include a gigabyte or two of RAM.) Affordability presents itself in other ways, too. Nothing is included in the box other than the power adaptor. The dock and case are separate SKUs, and it doesn’t even come with headphones. It’s like buying a Honda, not an Acura — the base model is not “well-equipped”. $500 is affordable but not cheap, and the iPad does not feel cheap in any regard. The build quality is outstanding. The brushed aluminum back makes my plastic iPhone 3GS feel cheap. The iPad takes more cues from the current iMacs than it does from the iPhone. The seam between the glass and the aluminum is nearly perfect. It’s just one piece of aluminum and a piece of glass — there is no superfluous chrome bezel between the glass and the backing as there is on all iPhones and iPod Touches to date. Even without turning it on it looks and feels a step beyond the iPhones and iPod Touches we’ve seen to date. The Killer App One thing that’s making it hard for some people to grasp the purpose of the iPad is that no one has an answer to what precisely it is for. This was not so for the iPhone. The answer to the question of what the original 2007 iPhone was meant for was right there at the bottom of the iPhone home screen, in the “dock”: phone, email, web, music and video. The other apps were icing on the cake. The four apps in the dock were what Apple designed the iPhone to do. The iPad also has a “dock” on the home screen, and the default apps in that dock are clearly important: Safari, Mail, Photos, iPod (which, on the iPad, is only for audio). But some are treating the iPad as, fundamentally, an e-reader. Others as a gaming device. Others as a movie player. None of those things are represented in the iPad’s default dock apps. The truth is that the App Store is the killer app. The iPad is meant for anything that can be represented on a 10-inch color touchscreen. Back in January when we were playing the “What’s Apple going to name the tablet?” game, my favorite, by far, was “Canvas”. I’m not saying here that Canvas would have been a better name than iPad, but the word conveys perfectly what the iPad is. Adam Engst captured this: The iPad becomes the app you’re using. That’s part of the magic. The hardware is so understated - it’s just a screen, really - and because you manipulate objects and interface elements so smoothly and directly on the screen, the fact that you’re using an iPad falls away. You’re using the app, whatever it may be, and while you’re doing so, the iPad is that app. Switch to another app and the iPad becomes that app. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is. As did Cultured Code’s Jürgen Schweizer: Steve Jobs said about the iPod that “it is all about the music”. With the iPad, Apple has done the same for personal computing as it has done before with the iPod: it made technology go away. But if the device is gone, and the operating system is gone, what is left? The iPad is an empty canvas that invites us to imagine what is possible. It inspires our imagination and it makes us want to create, because never before were we able to create software that was so close to the user. The iPad hardware and OS are profoundly humble — they put all the focus on whatever app it is that is open. Out of Box Experience One thing that is very iPhone-like about iPad is that when you first take it out of the box, it wants to be plugged into your Mac or PC via USB and sync with iTunes. In some ways, that’s understandable. USB syncing is how you load your iPad with music and videos and transfer over stuff like your email accounts, and, if you’re not using MobileMe, your contacts and calendars. But, on the whole, it feels retrograde. It’s creates an impression that the iPad does not stand on its own. It’s a child that still needs a parent. But it’s not a young child. It’s more like a teenager. It’s close. So close that it feels like it ought to be able to stand on its own. Android devices do not have this problem. You can sync an Android device with a desktop computer via USB, for transferring things like music and videos, but you don’t have to. Out of the box, a Nexus One is ready to go. Google’s big advantage here is that they’re using online services as primary data stores. The Google Way is to use Gmail for email and contacts, and Google Calendar for events. You just tell your Android device your Google ID and password, and your email, contacts, and calendars start syncing over the air. Apple has MobileMe, but because it’s a paid service, they can’t (or at least won’t) assume that all iPad owners are going to use it. But then even those of us who do use MobileMe get stuck with a first-run iPad experience that involves a tethered USB connection to a computer. The Apple Way is to assume that your primary data stores for these things are locally stored on your Mac or PC — Address Book, iCal. At the very least, these things ought to be able to sync between iTunes (on your Mac or PC) and your iPad over your Wi-Fi network. Third-party iPhone OS apps like Things do a great job with this — there’s no reason iTunes and the iPhone OS shouldn’t too. Those Heart-Stopping ‘Scratches’ On the iPhone (and iPod Touch; assume from here out that when I say “iPhone” I’m referring to both), app icons on the home screen sit atop a plain black background. On the iPad, they’re spaced further apart, which is why I think Apple has added wallpaper — making the iPad home screen look a lot more like a Mac or Windows desktop. The default wallpaper shows a sunset skyline of a mountain range in front of a like. There’s a meteor shower in the sky. And the streaking meteors look, at a glance, like a series of severe scratches on the display. It’s a curious choice. The Touchscreen Keyboard It’s a lot like the iPhone’s, but, it’s different. Because it’s bigger, there are no pop-up indicators showing which key you hit as you type. They’re not necessary. The feel, overall, is pretty much like typing on a really big iPhone. If you’re in a position where you can set the iPad down on your lap or a table top, it’s not too hard at all to type with all your fingers when the iPad is in landscape (horizontal) orientation. Now, to me, it’s nowhere near as good as even the worst full- or nearly-full-size hardware keyboard I’ve ever used. You can’t just rest all eight of your fingers on the home row keys, and you can’t feel where the key cap edges are. You have to look at the keyboard a fair amount as you type. On a hardware keyboard, I hardly ever look at the keys. But for a touchscreen, it’s good. In portrait (vertical) orientation, I can type on the iPad using just my two thumbs, as I do on my iPhone. I have relatively large hands, though — I don’t think most people can do it. The keyboard in this layout is way too small for me to type with all of my fingers, though. In portrait orientation most people will type using one finger, I expect. Now, the funny thing is, in general, bigger keyboards are easier to type on than smaller ones. That’s why big laptops are easier to type on than compact ones, and, indeed, that’s why the landscape iPad keyboard on the iPad is easier to type on than the portrait one. But at a certain point, the curve flips around and smaller becomes faster. I type much faster on my iPhone using the smaller portrait orientation keyboard than the wider landscape keyboard. In both modes, I use just my two thumbs. With the smaller iPhone keyboard, my thumbs have to travel less from one key to the next. People who aren’t very proficient at the iPhone keyboard, or who have very large thumbs and therefore have trouble precisely tapping the smaller keys, may well prefer the iPhone’s wider landscape keyboard. But for me it’s not even close. I never type in landscape on my iPhone. And in fact (and this is the aforereferenced “funny part”), I type faster on my iPhone than I do on the iPad. That’s especially true for when the iPad is in portrait mode, which puts the keyboard size in a no-man’s land — too small to eight-finger-type, too big to thumb-type. But it’s also true for when the iPad is in landscape mode. I’m hopeful that this is just a factor of experience and muscle memory — I have nearly three years of experience typing on the iPhone, and only two days experience with the iPad. Last Friday I watched Andy Ihnatko eight-finger-type on his iPad — which he’d been using for over a week — and he was typing pretty goddamn fast. One problem I’ve run into is that Apple has subtly changed the layout of the keyboard from the iPhone’s. On the iPhone, the Delete key is on the lower right, above the Return key. On the iPad, it’s in the upper right corner, and the Return key is next to the L key. The iPad adds a right-side Shift key. The iPad layout makes perfect sense — both these keys are now where they reside on traditional hardware keyboards. Their weird positions on the iPhone are a compromise forced by the extreme lack of space on the iPhone display. Apple has also added a new key to the iPad keyboard’s numeric/punctuation mode: Undo. It’s a good idea — I have the feeling most iPhone users don’t know about the system-wide shake-to-undo gesture, and even for users who do, the iPad is harder to shake (and, when docked, downright silly to shake). But this new Undo key moves the period and comma keys over to the right by two positions. The iPhone keyboard layout is so firmly ingrained in my mind that these changes are problems for me — I keep hitting the (new to the iPad) right-side Shift key when I mean to hit Delete, and I keep hitting Undo when I mean to type a period. I’ll get used to it soon, I’m sure, but I find it interesting that my iPad typing muscle memory is based on the iPhone keyboard, not regular keyboards. I think this is because, overall, it really does feel like a big iPhone keyboard. Hardware Keyboard Support I don’t have (and did not order) the iPad keyboard dock, but I have been using an Apple Bluetooth keyboard. In fact, I’m using it to type this entire review. It works great. Pairing (via the iPad Settings app) is easy and quick. And it works great. Several essential text-editing shortcuts from the Mac OS work system-wide on the iPad: Command-Z, -X, -C, and -V work for Undo, Cut, Copy, and Paste. Command-A works for Select All. You can use the arrow keys to move the insertion point. Option-Arrow keys work to move the insertion point one word at a time. Command-Left/Right moves the insertion point the beginning/end of the current line; Command-Up/Down moves the insertion point the start/end of the current text field — which, in the case of something like Pages, is the beginning/end of the entire document. Holding down Shift extends the selection range, and works in conjunction with the Option and Command keys as expected. (Certain of Cocoa’s long-standing Emacs-style text editing shortcuts work too: like Control-K (kill) and Control-H (backspace).) Certain of the function keys on the Bluetooth keyboard are useful on the iPad. The brightness keys control the iPad’s display brightness. The volume (and mute) keys work. The playback buttons — play/pause, next, previous — all work to control the iPod app. By default, once you’ve started using a hardware keyboard, the on-screen keyboard no longer appears, which is great, because the full display is now available for displaying content. But if you want to use the on-screen keyboard while a hardware keyboard is active, you can toggle it using the hardware keyboard’s Eject key. The Esc key dismisses the auto-complete suggestion — it’s like tapping the little “x” next to the suggestion under the current word you’re typing. While a keyboard is connected, you can wake up the iPad by hitting any key — completely bypassing the iPad’s slide-to-unlock screen. Very nice. The iPad is fundamentally a touchscreen device. You absolutely do not need a hardware keyboard for it. But if you’re hoping to do any amount of serious writing with it (and, for obvious vocational reasons, I plan to), you’re going to want one. There are a few places in the iPad UI where I really wish the keyboard was useful but it isn’t. For example, Safari location field suggestions. On the Mac, you can use the up and down arrow keys to move through the list of suggestions. On the iPad, you must use touch to select from the list. Since you’re already typing if you’re entering a URL, this is just begging for arrow key support. (Ditto for suggested results from the Google search field in Safari.) The Esc key does not dismiss popovers, but that’s probably OK. It’s only possible to invoke popovers via touch, so it seems OK that you must dismiss them via touch as well. The Tab key can be used to switch between text fields; Shift-Tab goes in reverse order. (When using the hardware keyboard, I do find myself hitting Command-Tab, without thinking about it, when I want to switch to another app; it does nothing on the iPad.) Display The iPad display is, overall, wonderful. Colors are bright and (unlike the Nexus One’s OLED display) accurate. Photos and videos looks great. Touches seem precisely accurate. The glass feels good. Viewing angles are shockingly good. You can lay the iPad flat on a table while you eat or drink and it looks just fine at a decidedly skew angle — far more so than with the iPhone. This IPS stuff is the real deal; here’s to hoping for an IPS display in this year’s new iPhones. The only complaint I have about the display is that the pixel resolution isn’t all that dense. The iPad’s 1024  768 display has a resolution of 132 pixels per inch. The iPhone’s 640  320 display has a resolution of 163 pixels per inch. The difference isn’t huge, but it’s definitely noticeable. Type looks crisper on the iPhone than the iPad, and type rendering falls far short of even newspaper-caliber resolution, let alone glossy-magazine caliber. (Those of you who doubt that the pixels-per-inch resolution isn’t high enough, just wait until you see the type rendering on this summer’s new iPhones.) Safari The iPad is so good as a web reader, that, if you’re a web junkie, everything else the iPad does is just gravy. It’s good. I’m so used to Safari on the iPhone, though, where the toolbar is at the bottom, that I’m having a hard time getting adjusted to the toolbar at the top. I’m not saying it’s a bad decision on Apple’s part. In fact, the iPad HIG is quite explicit that iPad toolbars should go at the top, not bottom — which makes me think Apple thought about and tested this and has concluded that the top works better for the iPad form factor. It’s just that I use Safari on my iPhone a lot, and I am really used to the button placement. When you create a new page in Safari on iPad, text focus goes to the Google search field by default, rather than the URL location field. That’s a change from both desktop and iPhone Safari. I’m finding this hard to get used to, but I can see how this might be a better design for typical users. It makes the default search engine all the more essential to the web browsing experience, though. Zooming and flicking are essential to the experience, just like on the iPhone. Flicking is how you scroll, no surprise. The zooming, though, may come as a surprise. It wasn’t too long ago when 1024  768 was considered a large display for full-size web browsing. But: what matters on the iPad (and iPhone) is not the pixel count of the display, but the physical size. 9.7 inches diagonally is a bit small for non-zoomed web browser. But the action of zooming — whether through double-tapping or pinching — is so smooth, fast, and natural that it feels better, not worse, than old-school desktop web browsing. There’s one severe problem in Safari for iPad, though: memory crapping out. MobileSafari for iPhone has always allowed you to open up to eight pages at a time. It tries to keep them all truly open, in RAM, so that you can quickly switch between them. But when it runs out of memory it starts flushing some of the pages. It doesn’t forget the URL for those pages, and, in recent versions, it saves a static thumbnail image of the rendered page, but when you switch back to those purged pages, MobileSafari must reload the page — thus, you must wait both for the contents of the page to download and for the page to actually render (which — the rendering — often takes longer than the downloading). It’s very noticeable. Switching between unpurged Safari pages is instantaneous. Switching to a purged page takes as long as opening it from scratch. Wolf Rentzsch, linking to this complaint from Peter-Paul Koch, wrote a brief technical overview of why Apple might have designed MobileSafari this way. (Keep in mind that iPhone OS does not use virtual memory; thus RAM is severely constrained.) This purging problem got a lot better with the iPhone 3GS. The original iPhone and iPhone 3G only had 128 MB of RAM. The 3GS has 256. MobileSafari’s ability to keep more pages in memory is probably my single favorite aspect of the 3GS. The iPad also has 256 MB of RAM. But, in my use, iPad’s Safari isn’t able to keep nearly as many pages open as I can on my 3GS. In fact, sometimes it seems I can only have one, and every page I switch to gets completely reloaded. This is more than just annoying — it can lead to data loss if you have unsubmitted form data sitting in an “open” iPad Safari page. I’ve run into this posting items to DF from the iPad — my posting interface is a web page form. When I want to link to the current page, I invoke a bookmarklet which opens a new page with the title and URL fields of the posting form set to the title and URL of the page from which I invoked the bookmarklet. Often, though, I want to switch back to the page I’m linking to copy another URL or a bit of text to quote. Twice so far, when going back to the posting form, it’s been purged and must reload from scratch — in which case I lose anything I’ve already written. I never run into this problem on my iPhone 3GS when switching between just two open Safari pages. The problem is also severe for AJAX web apps, which tend not to be designed with full page refreshes in mind. I hope this can be improved significantly in an iPad software update, but I worry that it’s endemic — that because the iPad screen is so much larger than the iPhone’s, that MobileSafari must allocate significantly more memory per page for the framebuffers. 256 MB of RAM simply may not be enough for MobileSafari to keep more than two or three pages in memory. If so, Apple really needs to consider some sort of caching or serialization scheme rather than completely flushing away purged pages. Pages I wrote the entire 4,828-word first draft of this piece on my iPad using Pages.1 I didn’t use any of the formatting or layout tools — I used it as a text editor rather than a word processor. It’s quite serviceable. What I like best is that it opens very quickly. Switching between, say, Pages and Safari and back to copy-and-paste a URL feels more like switching than quitting, launching, quitting, relaunching. You don’t need to (and can’t) save manually. Whatever you do in a document simply persists automatically. When you go back to the list of documents, they’re presented as big thumbnails — very much like the list of open web pages in Safari. Pages’s toolbar and ruler are only visible when in portrait mode. In landscape mode, all of the chrome disappears. It’s just a full-screen editing view, a la WriteRoom. I’m writing this piece in this full-screen (landscape) mode, with my iPad propped up on a table in Apple’s iPad case. It’s a nice setup, and I can genuinely imagine leaving my MacBook at home for trips in the future, with the addition of few missing iPad apps (like, say, a good SFTP client). But when I say there’s no chrome in the landscape mode, I mean none. Pages has a decent simple little find and replace feature, but it’s only possible to invoke it in portrait mode. (I must have hit Command-F a dozen times so far, to no avail.) There are already complaints piling up that the iWork apps don’t support the complete feature set of their current Mac counterparts — open a file created in a Mac version of Pages/Numbers/Keynote on your iPad and certain document features may be removed. (The iPad apps prompt you with an alert telling you which aspects of the document have been changed or removed.) Another way of looking at it though, is that the iPad iWork apps are to their Mac counterparts what the iPad as a whole is to the Mac — simpler, more focused, but in some ways faster. Pages launches and is ready for input far quicker on my iPad than on my MacBook Pro. Writing this review, I’ve been switching back and forth between Pages and Safari. It doesn’t feel like quitting Pages, launching Safari, copying a URL, quitting Safari, and re-launching Pages. It feels more like switching — it only takes a moment after tapping the Pages icon on the home screen to be back where I was in my open document. (My only complaint is that you lose the insertion point when leaving and coming back to Pages — the document re-opens to where you left off, but you must tap the screen to place the insertion point. When switching several times, that becomes slightly tedious.) This is obviously not even close to a full review of Pages, but I can say without hesitation that it’s easily worth $10. Syncing There is, however, a severe shortcoming inherent to the iWork suite of iPad apps: document syncing between Mac and iPad. It’s a convoluted mess. In short, the only way to edit a document on your iPad that was created on your Mac, or vice versa, is to go through a convoluted multi-step process of exporting, copying, syncing or downloading, and importing. Ted Landau has copiously documented the entire situation in this article at The Mac Observer. Read it and weep. What it boils down to is that there is no syncing really. Real syncing is something like IMAP for email, or the way MobileMe handles calendars and contacts. When I read a bunch of new email messages using my iPad or iPhone, when I next sit down at my Mac, those messages are marked as read in my inbox. I don’t have to do anything on the Mac for that to happen. That’s just how IMAP works. I can add a new calendar event on my Mac, then walk away from my computer, take my iPhone out of my pocket, and the event is there. I can add a note to that event using my iPhone and a few moments later the note will be synced to the event on my Mac. Certain of my favorite iPad and iPhone apps sync like this too. When I read a bunch of RSS items using NetNewsWire on my iPad, they’re marked as read on my Mac. Sitting at my Mac in my office, I can send a long article to Instapaper. I go downstairs, pick up my iPad, sit on the couch, launch the Instapaper iPad app, and a few seconds later, there’s the article I just added to my Instapaper queue. This is the sort of data flow that makes me feel like I’m living in the future — using multiple hardware devices to view, edit, and modify the same data. I don’t worry about where separate copies of my data exist. Conceptually it’s just there in the apps, and the apps do all the hard work of pushing and pulling changes made on other clients. The data flow with these iWork apps isn’t like that at all, and needs to be for them to be truly useful. It doesn’t matter how good the user interface for viewing and editing spreadsheets is in Numbers for iPad if my spreadsheets aren’t there. Here’s an example. I keep the schedule for Daring Fireball RSS sponsorships in a Numbers document. What I’d like to be able to do on my iPad is launch Numbers and access the current version of that spreadsheet. But the only way I could possibly do that today would be if I went through the following steps every single time I made a change to the document on my Mac: Before opening the current version of the file on my Mac, check to make sure there isn’t a more recent version of it on my iPad. Open the file on my Mac and make changes. Save. Dock my iPad to my Mac via USB. Switch to iTunes and go to the Apps tab for my iPad. Add the newly-saved revision of the document to the file sharing list for the iPad’s Numbers app. Sync. Even after going through all of this, when I do want to open this file on my iPad, I have to remember not to open the last revision of it listed in the iPad Numbers app’s “My Documents” list, but instead remember first to import the latest revision from Numbers’s file sharing list to Numbers’ “My Documents”. And, again, it’s effectively up to me to keep track of which machine, Mac or iPad, has the most recent revision of the file. To say the least, this is a recipe for disaster, and even if you don’t make a mistake and inadvertantly make significant changes to an out-of-date version of the document on one of the two machines, you’re stuck with a preposterously, mind-bogglingly convoluted workflow each and every time you make a change to the document. The bottom line, obviously, is that there is no way that anyone is going to use these iPad apps in the way I describe above. As-is they’re only useful to me in two ways. First, I can imagine using Pages on the iPad to compose original new documents — posts for Daring Fireball — while I’m using my iPad. I’ll either finish them there and then copy-and-paste the result into the web-based posting interface for DF, or, I’ll send the draft to my Mac for further editing (which is what I did for the piece you’re reading right now). I can also imagine creating finished Keynote decks on my Mac and then moving them, once, to my iPad, and taking only my iPad with me to the presentation — i.e. using Keynote, Numbers, and Pages on the iPad as viewers for finished documents. (And, conveniently, they’re viewers that can make edits if you notice a mistake or want to make a last-minute change or addition.) But there’s no possible way to use these apps as clients alongside their Mac counterparts on an ongoing basis. The sort of over-the-air syncing I’m imagining for iWork is, admittedly, a difficult problem to solve. But the bad news for Apple is that their top competitor in this space has a solution: Google Documents. With Google Documents, there’s no making copies, importing/exporting, manually invoked syncing, or USB tethering involved if you want to edit a single instance of a spreadsheet from multiple machines. You just make changes on one machine, and when you next look at that document from another machine the changes are there. The workflow for iWork is downright antediluvian. It’s not just pre-Cloud, it’s pre-network. It’s effectively the “Who’s got the latest revision of this file?” workflow of the days when we moved files from one machine to another via floppy disks. What in the world is iWork.com for if not for solving this problem? At least iWork.com lets you avoid having to physically tether the two machines via USB to get a document from the Mac to the iPad (or vice versa), but it’s no better than file sharing through iTunes conceptually. When you send a file to iWork.com (from either Mac or iPad) you’re pushing a copy, a snapshot of the document from that moment. After making subsequent changes, you’ve got to push those changes to iWork.com all over again. And to get them on the other device, you must manually import — making just another copy. What you ought to be able to do is specify iWork.com as the canonical shared storage location for an iWork document. iWork.com doesn’t serve as any such purpose today. iPhone Apps I predicted it’d be crummy to run non-iPad-optimized iPhone apps on the iPad — like Classic apps running on Mac OS X — and I was right. It’s OK for games — they look jaggy, but jaggy games aren’t that uncommon. But regular (non-game) apps just look and feel weird. When you run them pixel-doubled text doesn’t scale dynamically — everything is pixel doubled. It’s a good way of proving that the iPad is not “just a big iPhone”, though. The only iPhone app I find myself using on my iPad is Simplenote, for copying and pasting bits of text to and from my Mac and iPhone. Needless to say, I’d love an iPad-optimized version of Simplenote. iBooks and Kindle The iBooks app is free, but doesn’t ship with the iPad by default — you have to download it from the App Store. Apple hasn’t explained why this is so, but there are several reasons I can think of. For one thing, e-book rights are managed on a country-by-country basis — it seems likely that the iBooks store won’t be available in every country where the iPad will soon be sold. Making it an App Store app will also allow Apple to update the app on its own schedule — built-in system apps only get updates along with the entire system. So in some ways, the iBooks app is on equal footing with other e-book readers available in the App Store, particularly Amazon’s Kindle app. But iBooks does get some special treatment — the first time I launched the App Store app on my iPad, it prompted me with a dialog box asking if I’d like to down the free iBooks app. It’s impossible to miss. The iBooks app also has display brightness controls that are not availble through public APIs. Winnie the Pooh is included as a free sample, and the choice is genius — it’s a beloved story, a good read, and best of all (from Apple’s perspective) it can’t be read properly on the Kindle because the color illustrations are a big part of the experience. No book on the Kindle will ever look this good. The Kindle has its own advantages — its books are generally cheaper, its selection bigger, and e-ink works better in bright sunlight — but Winnie the Pooh epitomizes the iPad’s advantages. iBooks’s page-turning animation is delightful — it doesn’t just track your finger-swipe precisely, but even renders the type faintly in reverse on the other side of the “sheet”. The practical minded can simply tap the right and left edges of the screen to turn pages. Amazon’s iPad-native Kindle app is good, too. Oddly, to my mind, it is superior to their recent Mac app in every way. It looks better, feels better, renders text better, and has more features. I say this is odd because the iPad was announced just two months ago; Mac OS X was announced over a decade ago. I suspect part of the reason the Mac version is so crippled is that they were more worried about keeping Mac users from un-DRMing Kindle content than they were about making the Mac app an actual good-to-use app. The Kindle doesn’t do animated page-turning, but that’s not a big deal. Reading is great. And the Kindle’s ace-in-the-hole, of course, is the far larger selection of e-books in its store — hundreds of thousands versus Apple’s tens of thousands. I bought When the Game Was Ours, a new book by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. It is not available in the iBooks store. So Kindle’s advantage is library size (and, secondarily, price per title). iBooks’s advantage is the color display. I’d be shocked if every single piece of advertising Apple produces for iBooks doesn’t focus entirely on screenshots of books with color illustrations, photos, and video. I think it’s going to be easier for Apple to improve the iBooks store library than it will be for Amazon to create a Kindle hardware model with a color display. I think Amazon would do well to add color support to Kindle e-books for use on iPads and iPhones. Kindle has a better chance of long-term success as a software platform than a hardware one. Third-Party Apps in General Given that most iPad-native apps in the store right now were developed using only the simulator by developers without access to actual iPads, you might expect apps to be buggy and UIs to be awkward. I’ve found the bugginess to be true, but the UIs are actually good. I think the physical prototypes developers jury-rigged for themselves paid off, design-wise. There’s no question that UIs are going change rapidly in the coming weeks now that developers have the real deal to measure the feel of their apps against, but for the apps I’ve been using the most, they’re pretty damn good already. As for the bugginess, I’m not saying it’s inexcusable or even surprising — the SDK simulator is not a perfect simulation. Several of the bugs I’ve reported are only present when the apps are running on actual iPad hardware. On the whole, though, the quality of iPad apps on day one is better, by far, than I had expected considering that developers had to build them in the dark, as it were. Prices, so far, are significantly higher than for iPhone apps — but still far cheaper than category equivalent Mac apps. For example, NetNewsWire is $10 (and going to $15 in May); Things is $20; and OmniGraffle is $50. No doubt there are going to be wildly popular 99-cent iPad apps, but it’s also shaping up as serious platform for serious tools. Games are a bit more expensive, too, but, to me, reasonably so. The final word count is just short of 7,300, so admittedly I wound up writing quite a good chunk of it in BBEdit on my Mac.↩

  • TUAW Exclusive: Aaron Patzer on the future of mobile finance, Mint.com, and Quicken on the Mac

    Filed under: Software, Internet Tools, TUAW Interview At the age of twenty-six, Aaron Patzer founded the financial website Mint.com. In many ways Mint was much like an Apple product: it had a simple interface, it was easy to understand and use, and many of Mint's early adopters became very loyal evangelists. Word of mouth spread, and just 18 months after its launch (Mint officially went public in 2007), Mint had added its one millionth user. To the dismay of many, Mint sold to Intuit in September 2009 for $170 million. I say dismay because many users of Quicken products had been less than thrilled with Intuit's offerings for some time, and some people were concerned what a twenty-year-old company that seemed stuck in its ways would do with a popular user-friendly Web 2.0 startup. Out of all the negative press, perhaps Mac users could be forgiven for having the most anxiety over the acquisition. Many had abandoned Quicken Mac 2007 in favor of Mint.com. Mac users wanted to move on from the stale Quicken ecosystem and go with something simple and easy. Now, that simple and easy solution had moved to where the users had escaped from. Luckily, Intuit wasn't like other companies who buy smaller start-ups just to eliminate a competitor. Intuit recognized that Patzer and his team possessed the much-needed original financial software ideas and UI design mojo to put a spark in their aging products. In November 2009, Intuit made Aaron Patzer VP/GM of Intuit's Personal Finance Group -- which left him in charge of Intuit's personal finance offerings, including Quicken for Mac. It was January 2008. At Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs had just unveiled the MacBook Air. Over at Intuit's booth, the company was previewing an anticipated update to Quicken Mac 2007 - one that didn't require Rosetta to run and didn't have an un-Mac-like UI. Unfortunately, the UI that Quicken ended up with consisted of a Cover Flow-esque interface. It was 2008 after all, and Cover Flow was the hot new UI element, but this was a finance app. We didn't need glitz when we just wanted to see how much cash we had in the bank. That aside, the single-window interface was a welcome change. Intuit announced that Quicken Mac 2007's sequel, Quicken Financial Life for Mac, would ship in the Fall of 2008. Fall 2008 came and went. At Macworld Expo 2009, Intuit previewed a new beta of Quicken Financial Life for Mac and delayed its release again until Fall 2009. I was an early tester of the new beta, and it was buggy; the user interface looked friendlier than it actually was - in other words, the beta was everything you had come to expect from an Intuit product for the Mac. July 2009 came around and, no surprise, Intuit announced it was delaying Quicken Financial Life again, this time until 2010. 2010 - four years after the last version of Quicken for Mac came out (2007 was released in 2006). This time Intuit released a statement all but admitting that the company had failed at providing the Mac with usable financial software: Feedback from Mac customers led us to rethink our approach to developing Quicken for Mac. We went back to the drawing board and are making changes to everything from what the program does to how it looks. We spent extra time building a reconcile mode for the new register, a robust Windows-to-Mac transfer function for new Mac users (and existing customers running Quicken on a Windows virtual machine), and redesigned the experience to make it look and feel like a native Mac application should. At the same time, Intuit announced Quicken Financial Life for Mac would be available for pre-order from Intuit's site on October 12, 2009. Guess what happened? That's right. But at least this delay was only two months. By the time the product actually did go live with pre-orders many, including myself, thought it was too little, too late. Luckily though, something happened at Intuit between the pre-order delay in October and the December pre-order release: Aaron Patzer was put in charge of Quicken Essentials for Mac (they scrapped the Quicken Financial Life name for a reason I'll get to in a moment). I interviewed Aaron by phone yesterday and he had a lot of things to say about the frustration Mac users have with Intuit. Perhaps that's because he experienced the same frustration with Quicken - and that frustration led him to found Mint.com. Speaking with Aaron, I could hear the passion in his voice for simple products that allow users to easily access their data in a straightforward way. Those original ideas and UI design mojo I mentioned earlier? Aaron put them to work right away. "When I first saw Quicken Financial Life, it had Cover Flow for no reason," he laughed. Cover Flow? No reason? Gone. "Quicken for Mac 2006 and 2007 were C/C++ programs that looked like bastardized versions of the Windows product. Little things matter," he told me. "In the old apps you would think you were supposed to press Command-A to select all of the entries in your registry, because that's what Command-A does on a Mac - it selects all. But in Quicken Mac 2007 it would actually bring up your accounts list. It's little things like that, that you could tell the people [writing the program] weren't real Mac aficionados." Aaron himself uses a 15" MacBook Pro. The team that he spearheads for Quicken Essentials is a group of "Mac guys who live and breathe this stuff." The team consists of "five or six developers and three guys on QA with product managers coming on and off and the graphics guys switching between the Windows and Mac versions." Speaking of Quicken on Windows, Aaron himself wrote the spec for the next version of Quicken for Windows (2011, due out later this year). Why is that important? Because Aaron has a clearly defined vision of what the future of financial software will look like. "You'll start to see the mess of all the [Intuit] products merged together. Longer term it shouldn't matter where you use your financial application, whether it's on the Mac, Windows, or Linux. I want to get everything to parity [on] the features and actually do the back-end so it's all a consistent single data model - probably based on Mint - and then just skin the front ends (applications) to look like a Mac product, to look like a Windows product, to look like an iPhone or an Android app - to take advantage of the unique advantages of those platforms. But the back-end would be the same so you can just migrate any time you want to from Mint.com to Quicken Essentials for Mac to your Android phone or iPhone." Well, that sounds awesome, but what about people that have years worth of old Quicken data? "Eventually we will make it so you can just one-flip click your 20 years of data into the cloud and pull it down on any of these devices - that's the holy grail and it'll take over a year to do that,' he says. "But you can see that already in using the new QEM - it's using a lot of the same user experience paradigm (the way you budget on the Mac, the way you click through the pie charts) and that makes the back-end easier." That's the larger picture, and after listening to Aaron's enthusiasm, if anyone can make it happen, it'll be him. Let's get back to Quicken Essentials for Mac, though. "It's called Quicken Essentials for Mac because it's what we consider to be essential for most users - about 80% of users." It's not just what Aaron and his team think is essential; it's what people tell them they want. "We do a lot of usability studies, that's why Mint turned out the way it did. We applied the same to QEM. We went to people's homes and watched them use it. The majority of them just want to know: How much do I have? How much do I owe? How much do I spend on gas and food? How many times do I go to this restaurant? How many times do I go to Starbucks? What investments do I have? Let me set a budget to control my spending." Yeah, but what about the thing many arm-chair reviewers talk about? "Only 6% of users across all platforms use bill pay," Aaron says. "Most people still go to their bank's website to pay a bill." What about other requested features, like deeper investment tools? That's where the future of Quicken on the Mac comes in. Intuit isn't abandoning the Mac platform anytime soon; in fact, they're embracing it: "For the next version of Quicken for the Mac we are planning two SKUs: Quicken Essentials and a Deluxe version which adds the deeper investment tools - history of investments, stock lots (buying shares of one stock at different times), etc." You may rightly point out that Quicken for Windows and even the old Quicken for Mac supported these investment tools and that Quicken for Windows supports bill pay (for the paltry 6% who actually use it), but give it time. Aaron has only been on QEM for four months now, but has already helped completely reinvent Quicken on the Mac in that short timespan (yes, it's finally a Cocoa app). Though many may complain of the lack of investing/bill pay features, I can only liken Quicken Essentials for Mac to QuickTime X. Both apps have been rewritten from the ground up to replace clunky legacy code that would have slowed their scalability in the future. Just as QuickTime X is missing some of the features of QuickTime 7, Quicken Essentials for Mac is missing some of the features of Quicken Mac 2007 - for now. But because of the clean-sweep rewrites, these new applications are just the launching point for the programs into a better, more feature-rich future. I've been playing with Quicken Essentials for Mac for a few days now (I'll have a full review of it on February 25) and I can already tell you, I'm a convert. I abandoned Quicken for Mint, but QEM has brought me back into the fold. It's worth it for the Cocoa rewrite alone. What else does Intuit have in store for the Apple community? Aaron told me that after Mint releases its Android app, the team will be adding features to the next iPhone version. Some of those features include adding manual transactions - the ability to enter checks that haven't cleared yet, and an easier way to enter cash. "Doing that on the iPhone is probably the most useful way to do it because you are usually paying cash in a cab or buying a quick coffee with it." Another thing under consideration is an ATM locator. "We know which bank accounts you have so we can tell you which ATMs in your area are not gonna charge you a fee." Also expect to see an iPad app. "Yes, it's something we've been looking into. Ideal implementation would be Mint's pie chart that you can click through and dive into to see Food-Dining-McDonald's, etc. Where you could use pinch to expand and contract." But the iPad app won't be available at launch and probably not before late summer at the earliest. What about Aaron's brainchild? I use Mint for all my US accounts, but what about my UK bank accounts? Will the rest of the globe soon be able to utilize Mint.com? "Mint is working with the Global Division at Intuit, planning how to internationalize our code base." As Aaron points out, that's one of the advantages of such a large company taking over a Web 2.0 startup - the startup can use the company's resources to go further than it could have on its own. As for that large company? Well, something tells me that acquiring Mint and Aaron Patzer is the best thing that could ever have happened to Intuit - and you can take that to the bank.TUAWTUAW Exclusive: Aaron Patzer on the future of mobile finance, Mint.com, and Quicken on the Mac originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read|Permalink|Email this|Comments Apple - Aaron Patzer - Quicken for Mac - Intuit - Quicken

  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

    Wary China may review BHP's Potash bid. Nervous about market concentration, China may launch an antimonopoly probe into BHP Billiton's (BHP) $39B bid for Potash (POT), sources said. BHP, which declined to comment, is only seeking regulatory clearance in the U.S. and Canada. China is also said to be planning to review the merger of two Russian potash firms because of the impact these deals could have on the country, though it's unclear what practical steps China can take if it opposes either of the bids. In related news, China's Sinochem has reportedly hired HSBC (HBC) to advise it on its options regarding Potash (POT), though sources said the move is preliminary and doesn't mean a counteroffer is necessarily forthcoming. Petrobras, Brazil reach controversial oil deal. Brazil's state-controlled Petrobras (PBR) agreed to pay the federal government $42.5B in stock in exchange for five billion barrels of deepwater reserves. The deal is a controversial one, as investors say Petrobras is paying more than the oil is actually worth, and shares of Petrobras have already fallen significantly this year as investors worried just such a scenario would occur. Petrobras also plans to sell new shares to the public to raise an additional $25B as part of the plan. Lilly scores court victory on generics. Eli Lilly (LLY) scored a victory yesterday after an appeals court upheld a ban preventing Teva (TEVA) from selling a generic version of Evista, Lilly's osteoporosis drug. Evista sales were $259.5M in the second quarter, and the patents are valid through March 2014. Connecticut AG probes First Niagara-NewAlliance deal. Connecticut is investigating First Niagara Financial's (FNFG) proposed $1.5B takeover of NewAlliance Bancshares and has asked the banks to justify the merger. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said the state may choose to only approve bank mergers that benefit Connecticut's economy and the public, and that the First Niagara deal "raises significant and far-reaching legal and public policy issues." If approved, the tie-up will be the largest U.S. bank deal in nearly two years. FDIC loses closely-watched bank case. A closely watched court decision found the FDIC is not entitled to the $900M that it had demanded from Colonial BancGroup, the parent company of failed Colonial Bank. The FDIC had argued that Colonial Bank had signed a 2008 memorandum of understanding in which it said it would try to increase its capital, and the $900M represented the capital shortfall at Colonial Bank when it was seized in the biggest bank failure of 2009. However, the judge found that the memorandum of understanding didn't represent a commitment, a ruling that will undoubtedly be seized upon by other holding companies that ended up in bankruptcy after regulators closed their lending operations. GE preps for possible spending spree. General Electric (GE) could spend up to $30B on takeovers in the next two to three years, said John Rice, one of the company's four vice chairmen, but would do so in a way that's compatible with plans to boost its dividend and buy back shares. The comments signal GE is pulling away from the defensive position it took during the recession, with one analyst calling it a "sea change" in the company's thinking. Shares of GE closed up 3.7% yesterday. SEC investigates quote stuffing. The SEC is reportedly looking into "quote stuffing," the practice of placing an unusually large number of buy or sell orders for stocks in a fraction of a second, and then canceling the orders almost immediately. Regulators are concerned the practice is putting some investors at a disadvantage because it distorts stock prices, and are also checking if quote stuffing may have played a role in May's flash crash. Vale loses auction for copper smelter. Brazil's Vale (VALE) said it failed to acquire base metals and fertilizers holding company Paranapanema SA in an auction because the number of shares tendered was below the minimum threshold. Vale had been hoping to pick up Paranapanema, Brazil's only copper smelter, for about $1.13B to provide cost-savings in its growing copper business. Two Lehman units face failure. In a bankruptcy court filing yesterday, Lehman Brothers (LEHMQ.PK) said two of its units are struggling, and they need hundreds of millions of dollars to prevent a failure that could cost Lehman billions. The two units, Aurora Bank and Woodlands Commercial Bank, are struggling to meet capital requirements because of restrictions from regulators, including a limited ability to issue new CDs. Lehman estimates that failure to resolve the units' capital issues would result in losses of $1.2B-3.6B. November IPO likely for GM. General Motors reportedly plans to start wooing investors for its initial public offering after the midterm elections on Nov. 2, and will likely price its IPO on Nov. 17. The plan is subject to change based on the performance of the U.S. stock market. Auto sales show weakness. U.S. auto sales fell 21% in August compared to a year ago, although the comparison is a bit skewed as August 2009 was a strong month for sales thanks to the government's cash-for-clunkers program. One of the few firms to post gains was Chrysler, which saw sales rise 7% because of increased orders from corporate fleets. Ford (F) sales were down 11%, GM's sales were down 25%, and Toyota's (TM) were down a sharp 34%. Despite the precipitous year-on-year drop in sales, car companies remain confident that the industry's steady recovery is still on track. Mixed reviews on Apple upgrades. As usual, plenty of hype surrounded Apple's (AAPL) annual fall media event yesterday. In the end, the company unveiled a new line of iPods and a smaller, cheaper version of Apple TV for streaming movies and TV shows over the internet and into the living room. Gadgeteers generally liked the iPod updates, including a touch-screen nano, but said the "closed-minded" Apple TV is little more than a "Netflix (NFLX) streaming box." Shares of Netflix jumped 7.5% yesterday thanks to its new key role in Apple TV. Apple closed up 3%. Earnings: Wednesday After Close SAIC (SAI): Q2 EPS of $0.42 beats by $0.09. Revenue of $2.8B (+1.6%) in-line. Shares +1.3% AH. (PR, earnings call transcript) Today's Markets In Asia, Japan +1.5% to 9063. Hong Kong +1.2% to 20869. China +1.3% to 2656. India +0.2% to 18238. In Europe, at midday, London -0.1%. Paris -0.1%. Frankfurt -0.3%. Futures: Dow -0.2%. S&P -0.2%. Nasdaq -0.1%. Crude -0.2% to $73.77. Gold flat at $1247.90. Thursday's Economic Calendar Chain Store Sales 6:00 Monster Employment Index 7:45 ECB Announcement 8:30 Initial Jobless Claims 8:30 Productivity and Costs 9:00 FCIC Hearing: Too Big To Fail (Bernanke, Bair) 9:00 Fed Conference: REO & Vacant Properties 10:00 Factory Orders 10:00 Pending Home Sales 10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory 4:30 PM Money Supply 4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet Notable earnings before Thursday's open: DLM Notable earnings after Thursday's close: FNSR, HRB Seeking Alpha's Market Currents team contributed to this post.

  • Turn iTunes Up to 11

    It might be the hardest-working app in show business, but iTunes can rock a lot harder when you tune it up with add-ons and AppleScripts--and learn how Smart Playlists bring more of your favorite songs to center stage.iTunes started out as a smart, simple music player, but over the years, it’s evolved into one of Apple’s most important applications. Although it’s still used for managing and playing your music collection, iTunes now also stores apps, films, TV shows, podcasts, ringtones, and books--maybe “iStuff” would be a better name?--and of course, it’s the sole Apple-approved method for syncing content with iPods, iPhones, iPads, and Apple TVs.But that doesn’t mean you should take it at face value. Like many of Apple’s applications, iTunes is multilayered. Underneath its simple, straightforward hood, it’s surprisingly feature-rich, offering many powerful configuration options. And it’s time to make that power work for you with our guide to tapping into iTunes’ lesser-known but highly useful features. We also delve into the add-ons that expand the iTunes experience, including the very best third-party applications and highly useful scripts. So fire up iTunes 9.1 or later (it’s currently at 9.2), and get ready to rock!iTunes 9.2's Greatest HitsIf iTunes were a rock band, it’d only play stadiums. Besides storing and managing your music, the application has to deal with video, books, apps, ringtones, and more. To Apple’s credit, iTunes remains pretty usable, and much of its complexity is kept hidden under the hood. But don’t forget about these useful features.Library SourcesUncheck any media types you don't want cluttering up your sidebar.To change the default media types shown in the Library section of the sidebar, use the checkboxes in iTunes > Preferences > General. If any sources are grayed out in that menu, they’re probably disabled via parental controls. Those settings can be adjusted in the Parental section of the Preferences window.Import SettingsSet the import format here.By default, iTunes imports audio using the AAC Encoder set to 256kbps, which is how iTunes Store music is sold. AAC is fine for iPods, but if you use a non-Apple player, you might prefer MP3--head to iTunes > Preferences > General, and click Import Settings. If you’ve got tons of storage, Apple Lossless is the best encoder, and iTunes 9.1 and later can automatically convert songs to space-saving 128kbps AAC when you sync an iDevice (in the device’s settings pane).Multiple WindowsOpen sesame.Although primarily designed as a single-window app, iTunes lets you open most sidebar components (Music and Connected Devices being exceptions) in their own windows by Control- or right-clicking and selecting “Open in New Window.” If you’ve got a large monitor, it can be handy, for example, to view your music library and the iTunes Store simultaneously.Sound EnhancementPump up the bass, yo!The often-overlooked Equalizer (Window > Equalizer, or Command-Option-2) has sliders you can fiddle with to adjust the sound, along with presets in the drop-down menu. iTunes can save your custom settings if you choose Make Preset from the drop-down menu.Keyboard ShortcutsView MenuAs List - Command-Option-3As Grid - Command-Option-4As Cover Flow - Command-Option-5Show/Hide Column Browser - Command-BShow Artwork Column - Command-GShow Genius Sidebar - Command-Shift-GSwitch to/from Mini Player - Command-Shift-MControlsPause - [Space]Next - Command–right arrowPrevious - Command–left arrowEject - Command-EStore MenuBack - Command-[Forward - Command-]Home - Command-Shift-HNext page: Smarter iTunes Playlists >>Smarter iTunes PlaylistsPower up your iTunes playlists with minimal effortTechnology moves pretty fast. People used to spend entire Saturdays happily compiling a “mix tape” by carefully recording favorite tracks on a cheap cassette deck, but once digital music hit its stride, such endeavors were seen as a startling waste of time. With a music collection sitting on your hard drive, mixes could be made quickly thanks to the magic of drag and drop.Select any track in your library, click the Start Genius button, and presto, you have a unique playlist!iTunes easily creates static playlists, and always has. Click the invitingly large Plus button at the lower left of the main iTunes window (or go to File > New Playlist), name your playlist, and then drag in tracks from your library. Tracks can be reordered, and you can also drag songs from one playlist to another; note that the track also remains in the playlist it was dragged from--it isn’t removed. It’s also worth noting, in case you’re concerned, that playlists contain “shortcuts” to the original tracks. Delete a playlist or an item from a playlist, and the original track remains in your library.An Automated ApproachWith iTunes 8, Apple introduced its Genius technology, which tries to predict listening habits based on the collections of millions of iTunes users. This lets you create a playlist of tracks based on a favorite song. Select a track in your library, then click Start Genius at the bottom right of the iTunes window (or Control-click and select Start Genius). iTunes will create a 25-item playlist containing that track and similar songs. By using the controls above the playlist, you can extend it to 50, 75, or 100 items; refresh it; or save it.Saved Genius playlists appear in the sidebar’s Genius section, but Genius Mixes are included by default. Select this to access mixes that are genre-based, randomized, and sealed. You can’t access Genius Mixes to see which tracks are up next, nor can you view a full list of albums and artists, but they’re still a handy “personalized radio” for those days when even starting up a Genius playlist seems a bit too much like hard work.Smart PlaylistsIntroduced in iTunes 3, smart playlists are dynamic; they’re based on user-defined criteria. This same idea is used elsewhere on your Mac--smart folders in the Finder, smart mailboxes in Mail--although the iTunes implementation is the most advanced and flexible at the time of this writing.File > New Playlist Folder adds a handy folder to the sidebar, into which you can drop static and smart playlists for easy access.To create a new smart playlist, go to File > New Smart Playlist or use the keyboard shortcut Command-Option-N. This brings up the Smart Playlist dialog. To create a basic smart playlist, leave all the settings alone, but add your favorite artist to the empty field, and then click OK. Your new playlist will be added to the sidebar and highlighted. In the main iTunes view area, you should see a list of tracks from your specified artist.An example of a nested playlist--these can be as simple or as complex as you like, so go crazy!Since they’re dynamic, smart playlists can be updated with new settings. Select your playlist and go to File > Edit Smart Playlist (or Control- or right-click it and select Edit Smart Playlist). Click the Plus button to add a new rule. The left-most menu includes many criteria you can pick from. Add as many rules as you like, and define specific values for them. The Match menu lets you choose whether the playlist includes tracks determined by all of the rules or any of them. The former could be used to create a playlist of tracks by your favorite band, not including that one lame album (Album > is not > [album name]), and only from the 1990s onwards (Year > is greater than > 1989). To remove a rule, click the adjacent Minus button, although be aware there’s no undo.Advanced RulesThe Smart Playlist dialog has a few options that can further refine your playlists. The Limit checkbox enables you to set a specific track count and also a selection criterion (random, recently played, and so on). If the Live Updating box is checked, relevant tracks subsequently added to iTunes will be added to the playlist without you having to do anything.With iTunes 9, Apple finally added a change that smart-playlist gurus had demanded for years: nested playlists. Before iTunes 9, complex playlists of the form “A and (B or C)” required you to make the “B or C” playlist first and then a second playlist to work with its output. Now, however, you can use the “…” (ellipses) button to create nested rule groups and therefore playlists with complex logic.If this concept sounds tricky in the abstract, here’s a practical application for nested smart playlists. Say you want to create a playlist comprising tracks from 10 of your favorite bands, only using songs rated above four stars and that have not been played in over a month. Previously, this would have required two playlists, because the bands are an “any” match, whereas the other rules are an “all” match. With iTunes 9, you set up a single match-all smart playlist with the time and ratings rules, and nest a match-any set that deals with the band names. An example is shown above, but the sky really is the limit with smart playlists, and once you’ve set a few up, you can let iTunes do all the hard work of adding tracks. It’s a long way from waiting for a cassette to run out of tape!Base Your Playlists on RatingsThis simple smart playlist finds favorite tracks you haven’t heard recently.The best smart playlists are often the simple ones: If you rate your tracks, create a smart playlist where track ratings are greater than 3 and call it “4+ tracks.” For your very best tracks, create a smart playlist with tracks rated 5. If you’re always forgetting what music you’ve added over the past couple of months, create a smart playlist with the rule: Date Added > is in the last > 60 days, and where Media Kind is Music. Create a similar playlist, but change 60 days to 12 months to include songs you’ve added over the past year. Or if you’d like to unearth lost favorites, create a playlist called “4+ neglecteds” and set rules based around track ratings (Rating > is greater than > ***) and when the tracks were last played (Last Played > is not in the last > 30 days).Target Your iPodsUnless you have a 120GB iPod classic, your Apple music player has a relatively limited capacity. That’s fine if your music collection is small, but if it isn’t, you can always create a playlist with nested rules to fill it full of favorite tracks.In the example below, the Time rule dispenses with very short (under 40 seconds) and very long tracks (over 5 minutes), classical music, and anything with a very high bit rate (although you can automatically “downsample” audio during syncing in iTunes 9.1). The Media Kind rule restricts the playlist to music, filtering out spoken audio and the like.If you’ve got an iPod shuffle, fill it with highly rated, short-ish tracks.Our nested rules follow this logic: Tracks are only added to the playlist if they’re rated over 3--unless they’ve been added within the previous 14 days and don’t have a rating of 1. This means that you always get recent tracks (including all unrated ones) unless you’ve already decided to mark them as rubbish, but older tracks are filtered by your rating.Next page: The Best iTunes Add-Ons >>The Best iTunes Add-OnsiTunes gets even better with one (or all) of these apps as its backup singersI Love StarsOnce you set the preferences, the app stays in your menu bar.Even if your library is modest, rating all your tracks can seem daunting. But a rated collection gives you more possibilities for smart playlists, and I Love Stars lets you rate as you go. The app sits in the menu bar and shows the currently playing track’s rating. To change the rating, click on the relevant star. Control-click to access the preferences and define systemwide keyboard shortcuts for rating tracks. I Love Stars can even alert you (optionally) when an unrated song is almost done playing.iTunes Preference PaneTinker with these additional settings when iTunes isn’t running.As with Mac OS X itself, Apple hides a number of iTunes preferences, not making them accessible via a graphical user interface. iTunes Preference Pane installs into System Preferences and provides options for tweaking iTunes. Perhaps the most useful setting is Invert Library Links, which turns the library arrows into links to your own library rather than the iTunes Store (Option-click for the default functionality). The ability to apply half-star ratings will benefit anyone who considers Apple’s default system too restrictive. Note: Make changes to the settings only when iTunes isn’t running.iTunesMenuiTunesMenu stays out of your way.Plenty of iTunes-notification apps exist, but most take up valuable space on your screen, or get hidden by other windows. iTunesMenu uses your menu bar to display the name of the song currently playing in iTunes, along with other information, such as the artist and album. The drop-down menu also provides access to basic iTunes controls, although we recommend your Mac’s keyboard for those.BowtieBowtie has a few looks, and you can download more.Bowtie is similar to iTunesMenu, but instead of displaying the current track’s name in text, it displays the album artwork. Preferences let you define the artwork window’s depth (Desktop level, normal, or always on top). Bowtie includes two alternate themes: one purely text-based, and one with a tiny vinyl record poking out from the artwork. Additional themes can be downloaded (search Google for “bowtie theme”), or if you have knowledge of HTML and CSS, you can make your own.LoungeLounge resembles the Now Playing screen on Apple TV.Lounge is an interesting mix of screen saver and iTunes kiosk, and it’s perfect either for parties or just as a good-looking screen saver for any Mac. Instead of iTunes-style visualizer pyrotechnics, Lounge displays the current track’s artwork and information. Options let you toggle keyboard controls for skipping tracks and adjusting volume without exiting the screen saver, flip the screen periodically to avoid screen burn, and even choose a screen saver to switch to when a playlist has ended.Album Artwork AssistantMatch all your albums to their artwork in no time.Album Artwork Assistant beats its artwork-seeking rivals by being comprehensive and offering plenty of choice regarding potential artwork to import. It also provides a queuing system for when you’d like to work through a bunch of albums, rather than immediately applying new art every time. To use this feature, switch Add Immediately for Add To Queue in our walkthrough below (Step 2), and when you’re done, open the Queue drawer and click Process Queue.Next page: How to Setup iTunesMenu & How to Find Artwork for Your Albums >>How to Set Up iTunesMenu1. Get StartediTunesMenu communicates with iTunes to find out what the currently playing track is. The track artist is displayed in the menu bar, updating as new songs begin. Click the artist name to access the app’s menu. Choose Preferences to configure the display.2. Configure the DisplaySelect General and decide what you want displayed in the menu bar. To show the title and artist, separated by a bullet and with a space afterward, type %Title • %Artist into the Status Menu Order field, then click Save Preferences. (Ensure Scrolling is set to None.)3. Fonts and HotkeysTo change the iTunesMenu font, click Select and choose a new one from the Mac OS X Fonts panel. If your Mac keyboard lacks media keys, use iTunesMenu’s Donate section to give $1.99, enter your activation key, and use Hot Keys to define iTunes controls.How to Find Artwork for Your Albums1. Install a ScriptQuit iTunes and System Preferences. In Album Artwork Assistant, select Install iTunes AppleScript from the Application menu, then click OK. Select a track or album in iTunes to change its artwork. From the Script menu, select Find With Album Artwork Assistant.2. Select Your ArtworkAlbum Artwork Assistant will display the tracks to be updated. Below this list, the search string used is displayed, along with image results with a resize slider. To choose new artwork for your tracks, select an image and then click Add Immediately.3. Find Alternate ArtworkAlbum Artwork Assistant may not find artwork right away for obscure releases. Try changing the search string. Alternatively, select the Web Search tab to activate the browser area. Once you find artwork to use, Control- or right-click it and select Add Immediately.Next page: Scripts Make iTunes Sing >>Scripts Make iTunes SingAppleScript is something of an unsung hero. It easily automates repetitive tasks, but few users ever go near it. If you’re an iTunes power user, scripts are a must, but you needn’t hack away in AppleScript Editor--many prebuilt iTunes scripts are available online. All you need to do is download them, plonk them in the iTunes Scripts folder, wait a second or two, and the extra functionality is yours.If you regularly use a script, apply a keyboard shortcut via Keyboard Shortcuts in System Preferences.The walkthrough below shows you how to set up and manage scripts, so we’ll concentrate on the best available scripts. All of the scripts mentioned are available for free from the Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes website (dougscripts.com/itunes).Track ManagementIf you’ve got a pretty big music collection, keeping it in good shape can take time--way, way, way too much time. Scripts can assist you with management tasks, taking minutes or seconds to accomplish what might take you hours or more.One of the best housecleaning scripts is Super Remove Dead Tracks. This finds songs in your library that are no longer available on your Mac. Every 500 tracks, it throws up a dialog to inform you of its progress, and the optional text-based log file at the end tells you which entries have been deleted. On our 13,500-track test library,this entire process took under a minute.Tracks Without Artwork To Playlist is similar--you select a library, playlist, or an arbitrary bunch of tracks, and the script copies songs without artwork to a new playlist. On activating the script, all you need to do is click Proceed, choose a name for your playlist, and wait for a bit. On our iMac, the script took about 5 minutes to churn through our 13,500 tracks, finding about 1,500 that lacked artwork. With a No Artwork playlist in place, it’s simple to send these tracks to Album Artwork Assistant to grab artwork online.Another great playlist script is Gather Up The One-Hits. It collects tracks where the artists are each represented in your library by just a single song. Chances are, this will mainly comprise content from compilations, but we found a bunch of one-offs we’d grabbed from the iTunes Store and subsequently forgotten about.Track Info and PlaybackAlong with rapidly cleaning up your library, scripts can deal with metadata issues, and you don’t have to open a single Get Info window. Quite often, iTunes downloads inaccurate data when you import tracks from CDs by obscure artists--a common error is the artist and track name fields being reversed. The Swap This With That script from the This Tag, That Tag Scripts compilation can handle this. Launch the script, select a tag to swap from and another to swap to, and your songs’ data is amended. However, be aware that there’s no undo. If your metadata issues are subtler, investigate Track Names To Sentence Caps and Track Names To Word Caps (both of which reformat cases in track names) and Remove N Characters From Front or Back. The last of those enables you to remove a specific number of characters from the start (‘front”) or end (“back”) of a selection of song titles. So if some song titles have track numbers at the start or “disc 1” at the end, this script removes that information quickly and easily.Scripts can also assist with playback controls. Needle Drop enables you to audition a selection of tracks in automated fashion, after defining playback length and an intro point. For example, you can play 10-second bursts from 2 minutes into every track from a specified playlist.Another favorite script is Make Bookmarkable, which turns the file type of selected AAC tracks into M4B, thereby making them “bookmarkable,” so playback resumes where you left off. Make UN-Bookmarkable reverses the process.External ConsiderationsSearch Wikipedia and Google Video Search search the web for more information about your music, working in similar ways: You select a script, and a dialog asks whether you want to search based on the currently playing track or the currently selected track. You then select a category to base the search on. For Wikipedia, you can select the artist, album, or composer. For Google Video, you choose between song, artist, and album. The dialogs aren’t pretty, but they get the job done and save time.Search for an artist or album on Wikipedia directly from within iTunes simply by using a little script.Another set of scripts enables you to export track information from iTunes. Although this can be done using File > Library > Export Playlist, the resulting text file is complicated, huge, and unwieldy. Instead, we recommend Album-Artist To HTML Table, which exports a list of your artists and albums (and, optionally, associated tracks, although processing that information takes a long time, so we don’t recommend it) to an HTML document that you can open in a web browser. The script has a couple of quirks: you need to reorder your track list to Album By Artist for best results, and don’t let the script open a browser when it’s finished, or you’ll likely get an error. Instead, click Done and then manually open the HTML file it outputs.Another export option worth a look is Playlist To Papercdcase.com. It lets you export up to 28 tracks from a playlist to papercdcase.com (the site opens in Safari), which cunningly formats the data into a PDF file that can then be turned into a CD case if your origami skills are up to snuff.Back Up Your iTunes FolderThe add-ons mentioned elsewhere in this feature do relatively little to affect the content of your iTunes library. At most, they add a little data here and there, such as ratings and new artwork, and these things are easy enough to revert or delete at a later date. Scripts in iTunes can be a very different matter, because some of them automate complex and “destructive” processes, including reworking and deleting tracks. We’re not trying to scare you off--iTunes scripts can often be very handy timesavers--but we do suggest that you don’t just start using scripts blindly. Before you work with scripts that do anything major to your iTunes library, ensure that you first back it up. The iTunes folder--including your music, other digital content, and databases--lives in the Music directory inside your user folder.How to Manage Your Scripts Folder1. Create a Scripts FolderIf you haven’t installed scripts before, you won’t have a Scripts folder to use. To add one, quit iTunes, use the Finder to access ~/Library/iTunes (the Library folder that’s found inside your user account’s home folder), and if a Scripts folder isn’t present, create a new folder called Scripts.2. Install and Remove ScriptsManaging scripts is a case of drag and drop. To install a script, drag it into the Scripts folder mentioned in Step 1. To remove one, drag it out of the folder or trash it. It’s best to do such management when iTunes is closed, but iTunes typically tracks script changes well.3. Check Things in iTunesLaunch iTunes. After installing a script, you’ll see a script icon in the menu bar between the Window and Help menus. This is where you can activate the scripts. Scripts can even have keyboard shortcuts assigned in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts, just like other menu items.

  • 3 Strategies for Apple Earnings

    The upcoming Apple (AAPL) earnings report is the most anticipated in recent memory. We supposed that all eyes would be on iPad sales, leading many to believe that 2010 stock performance could track the stellar 2007 performance generated from the original iPhone launch. It looks like the first ever quarter of iPad sales will show more units sold than all other Mac units combined. The revenue impact from the iPad will produce an earnings report that is off the charts for a company as mature as Apple. In addition, iPhone 4 sales tallied 1.7 million in the first weekend. You would think that such numbers would propel this stock on the 2007 trajectory and in fact, they have. 2007 witnessed an initial 64 trading day rise from the iPhone launch and 2010 witnessed a 52 trading day rise from the iPad launch. In 2007 Apple stock then experienced a 30 trading day period of volatility while 2010 has experienced a 59 day period of volatility. The third phase of 2007 finished with a 44% climb, we'll see what the third phase of 2010 brings...The bears want you to believe that the black cloud of iPhone 4 will put an end to Apple stock price appreciation but there is a major problem with their assumption. If you read the message boards and watch the talking heads you'll notice that 99% of those who are criticizing the iPhone 4 don't actually own one. It's the ignorant who are perpetuating the negative perception. Interesting that the media is so willing to give such people a voice even when this perception of iPhone 4 weakness isn't supported by facts. This new world of unfiltered, unaccountable media took down Toyota in a similar case of false perception. With such a wide gap between fundamentals and perception we arrive at Tuesday's earnings report. There are three legitimate strategies for us to consider: Strategy #1- Add a 6% allocation of AAPL 2012 $280 calls ahead of the report. Since April 26th, Apple has found itself in a trading range from $237-$275. If Apple jumps back up to the $270 range it will mark the third complete cycle in the last three months. An investor should be buying right now if they believe the iPhone 4 antennagate represents an overreaction of negative short term sentiment and they want to increase positions in anticipation of Apple climbing back to the top of the trading range. Buyers are focusing on revenue growth, profits, free cash flow, and increases in market share that will continue to be generated from the iPhone, Mac, and iPhone segments. Strategy #2- Hold current Apple positions through the earnings report. The E Weather Portfolio holds 24% in long term 2012 AAPL LEAPS, 10% in mid term 2011 AAPL LEAPS, and 2.5% in short term AAPL calls with 38% of the portfolio in cash. An investor would be holding right now if they are content with the level of risk in the portfolio and believe that the stock is headed up to the high end of the trading range over the next 3-6 months. Strategy #3- Sell out of the 12.5% allocation of mid and short term AAPL calls thereby increasing the cash allocation up to 50.5% of the portfolio. The latest analyst report from Stifel Nicolaus' Doug Reid draws attention to Apple's potential for gross margin decline from an expected 39.5% down to Reid's forecast of 38.8%; this report spooked the street into a pre earnings selloff. Reid is clearly trying to jump on the negativity of the iPhone 4 by shifting investor focus onto the one detail in Tuesday's report that might be lower than expectations due to the unknown margins of the iPad. I have to hand it to Reid for finding an intelligent way to try and bash this quarterly report. He knows that Apple management will try to keep GM expectations down just as they did in last years April conference call when they projected GM to drop to 33% for the April quarter and 30% for July quarter. Of course those projections were terribly misguided but the current negativity surrounding Apple could cause an overreaction to any kind of GM miss. Clever move by a bearish analyst. If you sell Apple ahead of earnings you believe that the onslaught of negative sentiment will trump the stellar earnings results and Apple will break through the low end of its trading range. So what are we going to do? Our thesis is that Apple has endured an overreaction from the media. Steve Jobs did a great job of presenting unbiased facts related to dropped calls (less than 1 more per 100 compared to iPhone 3GS), customer complaints (0.55% have complained), and iPhone 4 return rates (1.7%). Such numbers indicate that those who are questioning Apple's credibility and innovation are misguided. As far as Apple fundamentals are concerned, we are confident that the stock is the best growth opportunity on Wall Street. But instead of trying to predict the volatility of earnings season we are going to hold our current positions in anticipation that Apple will experience a rise back to the top end of its trading range sometime over the next few months. It's very likely that the next run will eclipse the $300 mark. Our 36.5% exposure to Apple calls will do very well when Apple rises. There are two ways to play Apple; you can either be an investor or a trader. We like how Apple is positioned as an investment with expectations low and valuation at the lowest of the Steve Jobs era. Maintaining a 38% cash allocation as well as exposure to ETF's and other stocks (how about ALIF's 17% gain since we bought!) allows us to take advantage of any irrational selloff that may happen. Disclosure: Long AAPL

  • 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!

  • Stop the lies! The day that Microsoft 'saved' Apple

    Last week, with Apple overtaking Microsoft in market capitalization and with the floating of a crazy rumor that Microsoft's Steve Ballmer would talk up iPhone and Visual Studio 2010 at the keynote of next month's Apple Worldwide Developer Conference news stories on the Web, in print and on the tube repeated a serious urban myth: that Microsoft “saved” Apple in the summer of 1997.Here's the most common version of the myth from the San Francisco Chronicle:Ironically, it was Microsoft that saved Apple in 1997, when it pledged to develop applications for the Apple operating system and invested $150 million in the company.The partnership allowed Apple to go about narrowing its focus to building well-designed products for consumers. …Oops, didn't happen. This urban myth won't die and as we can see, it's now accepted in the Apple-Microsoft canon.Here's the truth:Back in the summer of 1997, Apple was in trouble with its developers, installed base and investors. The was chaos in Apple's product lines, SKUs with competing capabilities and positioning. Licensees for the Mac OS were clamoring over a go-ahead for new models. Just six months before, Cupertino had brought back Steve Jobs with his NeXT OS to create Apple's next-generation OS, but its arrival on the Mac would not come for a long long while.And then there were worries about Microsoft Office for the Mac. As I wrote in a post about the anniversary of the keynote:But the most important announcement of the hour the one vital to the millions of users who used the Mac every day to get their work done was Microsofts pledge to keep developing Microsoft Office for the Mac.Worry over MS Office was a concern expressed then by the professional Mac community on the pages of MacWEEK where I worked as a senior editor. MS Word and Excel were used in all professional content workflows and Mac businesses. And in academia and government. And everywhere else. They were critical applications.At the Macworld Expo Boston keynote address, Steve Jobs told the crowd that Apple needed to improve its relationships. “It needs help from other partners; it needs to help other partners.”Of course, these “partners” Jobs mentioned weren't the ones that most of the attendees hoped to hear about its Mac OS licensees. Instead, that partner was Microsoft. Surprise! The crowd around me in the Armory hall booed the announcement.“One [relationship] stood out as one that hasnt been going so well, but has the potential to be great for both companies: Microsoft, Jobs said that day.Read: Better living without MS Office Then, like Big Brother in the famous Apple Superbowl ad, Microsoft CEO and Chairman Bill Gates appeared above us on a huge overhead projection and made his own set of promises. The first was an investment of $150 million in Apple stock.Gates then said that Microsoft would continue to develop a Mac version of Office for at least 5 more years. In addition, the next version of Office would be a real Mac program and not warmed over Windows leftovers. “It will be more advanced than what's on the Windows platform.”This is the event that has been framed as Microsoft “saving” Apple. That Gates and Microsoft did a good deed for Apple, offered a helping hand out to the poor GUI interface cousin that was seeing bad days. And after the announcement, Apple's stock went up, which some saw as proof. Analysts revised their predictions of Apple's future prospects from “dead or dying” to “doomed.”Here are some backstory that recasts the myth in a different light:Microsoft's $150 stock investment was the result of a settlement of a lawsuit. In fact, the investment was just an initial payment for other “substantial balancing payments” that would be spread out over then next few years, then Apple CFO Fred Anderson said at the time.The exact amount of the settlement is still unknown as far as I am aware. I've seen estimates from $500 million to more than $1 billion.The two companies would cross-license all their existing patents, and any new patents that would become available during the next five years.That Apple would make Internet Explorer the default browser for the Mac. If this seems strange, then understand that it meant that Microsoft would support IE for the next 5 years, during a time when IE was the primary browser on the market and when sites were designed specifically to support it.What was this legal action that gave Apple so much leverage over Redmond? It was a strange one: the Apple Computer v. San Francisco Canyon Co. lawsuit.Stephen Howard-Sarin, now the vice president for business & finance brands at CBS Interactive, and I co-wrote the story for the Dec. 12 issue of MacWEEK (there weren't the 24/7 Apple channels that we now have on the Internet back then; I believe we broke the story).Apple suit: Video for Windows cribbed from QuickTime codeCharges of copyright infringement and wrongdoing were raised last week by Apple, which filed an intellectual-property suit against The San Francisco Canyon Co., a small third-party contractor for Apple. But the scope of the court action encompasses industry giants Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp.Canyon worked on digital video software for both Apple's QuickTime for Windows and Intel's Display Control Interface (DCI). Apple alleges its copyrighted code found its way into the shipping version of Microsoft's Video for Windows and will be used in future software from both companies. …The suit alleges that a senior officer of Intel, after seeing demonstrations of QuickTime for Windows and Video for Windows at Comdex/Fall '92 in Las Vegas, asked Canyon to provide software to Intel that would make Video for Windows' speed comparable to that of QuickTime. Seven months later, Canyon delivered its code to Intel, giving video for Windows 1.1D performance parity with QuickTime for Windows 1.1. …A few months later, Apple added Intel and Microsoft to the action. In later testimony, Apple showed that thousands of lines of “significant programming code” for video acceleration used in Windows came directly from Apple's QuickTime for Windows.A couple of years go by and the companies were all kisses and hugs for the keynote address to the Boston Macworld Expo.So, is there any ring of “irony” here as the reports make it sound? Not much to my ears. Microsoft and Intel got their fingers caught in the source code and paid for it. Microsoft hired a larger team of former Apple programers, which didn't help Apple directly, and Microsoft Office returned to being real Mac programs instead of lackluster ports.If we want to look for irony here, perhaps it can be found in the news that both Apple and Microsoft have recently issued public statements supporting H.264 for Internet video. Steve Jobs' pitch gets a high marks from Microsofts Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of the Internet Explorer division.Group hug!

  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must Know News

    Jobs growth arrives. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 162K in March, the biggest monthly advance in three years and the first convincing evidence since the recession began that the job market is recovering. Job creation was spread across industries, suggesting the uptick reflects broad economic momentum. Still, the duration of unemployment remains near record highs, and the number of long-term unemployed (+27 weeks) rose by 414K to 6.5M. Economist Heidi Shierholz summed up the Street's cautious optimism: "We have had this massive disaster, but we're at a place now where things are stabilizing. But it's nowhere near the level of growth we need to start moving the dial." Stock markets were closed Friday, giving investors the long weekend to mull the data's significance going into the new week. Geithner delays call on China currency manipulation. Treasury's Tim Geithner is delaying his April 15 report to Congress on the exchange rate policies of major U.S. trading partners, buying time to decide whether to label China as a currency manipulator. Geithner urged China to move toward a more flexible currency, and said the goal of the delay is to capitalize on "the G-20 and S&ED meetings with China to make material progress in the coming months." In another indication of a possible China-U.S. detente over the yuan, Li Daokui, a member of China's central bank monetary policy committee, said the countries' currency disagreement can be easily solved as long as the U.S. respects China's "core interests." The delay, and Li's comments, come ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's trip to Washington D.C. on April 12-13. NBER official says recession has ended. There's been no official word from the National Bureau of Economic Research, but a key official says the recession is likely over. Robert Hall, head of the NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee, referencing Friday's payrolls figure, said he "personally put lots of emphasis on employment. I would say 'pretty clear' is a good description" for whether the economic contraction has ended. An official announcement from the NBER may still be some time away, however, as the committee won't make a declaration until it can assign a precise end date to the recession, a process which usually takes 6-18 months. Criminal charges unlikely in AIG probe. Two years after federal prosecutors launched an investigation into the role of AIG's (AIG) executives in the insurer's collapse, the probe will likely end without a single criminal charge, sources say. Former AIG executive Joseph Cassano has been at the center of the probe, but the case against him has reportedly "hit a brick wall," with investigators unable to uncover evidence that Cassano lied to his bosses or shareholders about the company's financial problems. iPad debut. Apple (AAPL) enthusiasts lined up Saturday morning to get their hands on a spanking new iPad (teardown), but once doors opened things were relatively tame, with some reports of sellouts, but many store managers saying they were well stocked. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster - a respected Apple authority - estimates first-weekend sales at 600-700K, vastly stronger than his initial projection of 200-300K. But launch sales could be tempered by the fact that customers have been able to pre-order the iPad for home delivery, and because 3G-enabled iPads only begin selling later this month. Backlash against iron ore pricing. The China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) has asked domestic steel companies and traders with import licenses not to buy iron ore from Vale (VALE), Rio Tinto (RTP) and BHP Billiton (BHP) in the next two months, in protest of the new quarterly iron ore pricing system. CISA believes global iron ore producers have made "unreasonable requests for price hikes," and Chinese steelmakers have enough iron ore inventory to sustain a two-month buying moratorium. Faulty paperwork at center of foreclosure probe. Docx, a unit of Lender Processing Services (LPS) - which provides backoffice services for banks in the foreclosure process - is being investigated by federal prosecutors for criminal violations. A U.S. government lawyer who monitors bankruptcy courts believes some of LPS's loan documents were "patently false or misleading"; among the docs being reviewed is one that names "Bogus Assignee" as the owner of a loan (a company spokesman says that this phrase is used as a placeholder and was inadvertently not updated). Faulty paperwork has been an ongoing issue in foreclosure proceedings since the housing crisis began. Signs of life in real estate? Two possible signs of a possible real-estate rebound, one each from the west and east coasts. Home prices in so-called sand states - the sandy, sunny retreats that lured investors during the boom and were among the hardest hit in the bust - are starting to recover. In areas of California, prices for single-family homes are up 8.5%-14.7%, and in Arizona prices are up 7.4%. Florida and Nevada, in contrast, have yet to see a meaningful bounce. And in Manhattan, apartment sales doubled in Q1 as bargain hunters scooped up condos at prices about 29% below the peak. CEO pay falls for the second year. Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg is making his mark. A report analyzing the compensation for 200 chief executives of public companies found that pay dropped 15% in 2009, the second annual decline. The average total was $9.5M in 2009, roughly comparable with 2004. However, last year's drop was largely due to a decline in the value of stock and option awards, which means a handful of lucky CEOs received a windfall when share prices rose. Alan Mulally of Ford (F), for example, saw his 2009 options package grow nearly 10 times in value, to more than $50M. Today's MarketsIn Asia, Japan +0.5%. Hong Kong closed. China closed. India +1.3%. In Europe at midday, London closed. Paris closed. Frankfurt +1.3%.Futures: S&P +0.23%. 10-yr -0.05%. Euro -0.21% vs. dollar. Crude +0.57% to $85.35. Gold +0.04% to $1126.60. Monday's Economic Calendar Monday's economic calendar: 10:00 ISM Non-Manufacturing Index 10:00 Existing Home Sales 10:00 Employment Trends Index Seeking Alpha editors Rachael Granby and Eli Hoffmann contributed to this post.

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