Hiatus

Due to ongoing house moving shenanigans, Mister Mac is on temporary hiatus.

See you soon.

iPhone 3GS

The iPhone 3GS (S for Speed apparently) will be released on 19th June.

It’s faster, comes with an updated camera, 3MP with video, voice control, a digital compass, remote wipe.

The hardware remains looking the same so that old case of yours will still fit.

Details

There was also a lot of iPhone software demoed.

Find My Phone allows you to find where you put your phone down even if it’s in mute.

TomTom are releasing an app taking advantage of the built in compass and GPS turning the iPhone into a proper turn by turn satnav.

iPhone OS 3.0

iPhone OS 3 will also be released on 17th June, a free update to all iPhone users and is compatible with the original iPhone.

I’d think of version 3 as the first proper version with features you’d have thought would’ve been included at the start, but also adds a few things to move it forward.

Cut/Copy/Paste is finally here as is landscape in all the main apps. You can now finally search using Spotlight.

Peer to Peer gaming so you’ll be able to play along with friends with iPhones.

MMS which shall make some happy (never cared about it myself).

Finally your notes are now synced, it’s been so annoying that wasn’t there at the start.

You can now shake to shuffle like other iPods.

It also adds tethering, making it easy to connect your computer to the net when you’re not near any wifi.

Details

Mac OS X 10.6

Snow Leopard or Mac OS 10.6 is set to be available in September for a price in the US of $29 (no UK price yet, but I’d guess they’d just change the dollar to a pound).

Snow Leopard is more an improvement of what underpins the OS, making it faster and actually giving you back space on your HD with a few UI improvements.

Details

Safari 4

Safari 4 is now out of beta and released for both Mac & PC.

I am a little hesitant to re-install it. I removed it after finding problems when reopening pages from the last session, but that was a beta version.

Download

MacBook Updates

Apple have updated the MacBook range making the 13” Alu MacBook a MacBook Pro in the process. Seems a little silly, why not just drop the whole Pro moniker?

Updates include:

New 15” MacBook Pro with the
controversial built in battery but now has a built in SD card slot which is no doubt a lot more useful than the PC card slot was.

So does the new 13” which now also brings back FireWire! Which puts me out of date. It happens.

The MacBook Air and MacBook (White) both got a speed bump. The 17” also got an update but kept its card slot.

You can look at the full specs
here

Curious contractions

Or abbreviations: I was looking at the backups on the Time Capsule and found Mac OS X has a curious way of contracting words:

Picture 15

Five on your Mac

So along with 40d, channel Five is now Mac compatible too and the site has been much improved.

You can also watch with the
ITV Player, but the site design is a disaster.

Still it’s nice to finally be getting some Mac recognition.

4oD on a Mac!

Finally, 4oD, Channel 4’s catch up service is now available on the Mac, streaming at least.

Quality isn’t too bad on new programmes, older programmes like Father Ted are a bit more iffy, but it’s nice no longer to have to open Windows.

Link

Mac Cottages

madeonamac20050720

We often stay in cottages throughout the UK. Some are better than others, but we have noticed an odd correlation between cottages which have websites Made on a Mac being better than ones that haven’t.

Not to say the ones that haven’t are awful, just the ones which have are often better presented, or have gone that one bit further with presentation.

Three come to mind:

The Old Gardener’s Cottage in Canterbury. We loved the underfloor heating, had everything you would need, including wifi!

Buttslade House in the Cotswolds, a lovely little cottage with a beautiful garden. We spied the owner using a Mac when we walked past one afternoon.

Sadly one of our favourites, 31a Rivers Street in Bath appears to have vanished. Perhaps it’s been sold? It’s still to be found on
Enjoy England. It was a very quirky little building, we could’ve imagined living there.

iPod Shuffle


ipodshuffle_image3_20090311


Apple updated the
iPod Shuffle, making it smaller, removing all the controls to the headphones.

It’s not going to win any design awards (well, it will of course), but it’s smaller, lighter and still has a little clip on it. It’ll all be in the headphones eventually.

I’d have to try the voice controls to see how well they work. I know at the moment it’s a pain to dig the iPhone out of my pocket to check what’s playing, so it might be a great feature (and perfect for anyone visually impaired). All the tapping does remind me of the
MacTini.

At the moment you’re stuck with Apple’s headphones, but no doubt better ones will come and nobody is forcing anyone to run out and buy a new shuffle until they do.

Comes in Black or Silver - 4GB £59

Flash

Adobe has updated Flash to version 10.0.22.87. Fixes some critical flaws which could’ve allowed your computer to be hacked.

Download

Free Omni

The Omni Group have made four of their previously paid for apps free.

OmniDiskSweeper
OmniObjectMeter
OmniDazzle
OmniWeb.

I’ve used DiskSweeper before for rooting out why my hard disk had no space left.

Had OmniWeb been set free before Safari 4 launched I’m sure I would be using it now. It’s always seemed ahead of most browsers, but the price put me off when you could use Safari or Firefox for nada.

I’ll download it of course, but I’m not sure my head can cope with two new browsers in one day.

Safari 4

Safari 4
Apple released Safari 4 beta for Mac and Windows yesterday.

I’ve only had a quick play around but so far I like the tabs at the top giving a little more screen space and top sites, but it may take some getting used to. I think they need an easier way of adding sites to it unless I’m missing something?

I’m unsure how useful
Cover Flow is going to be in Safari, but maybe it has finally found a use? I can’t say I use Cover Flow in anything else, it’s always been something you wow at then never use.

Windows users should be please that it’s now more a
native app.

MacWorld US has a good review and Ars.

You can download Safari 4
here.

Mad Men

Mad Men season 2 has recently started on BBC 4. A wonderful series, if you’ve not seen season 1, go find it!