iWeb 2.0.3
Version 2.0.3 does "... update addresses compatibility with Mac OS X."
Little iWork updates
Keynote 4.0.2
Pages 3.0.2
Numbers 1.0.2
Mainly compatibility fixes.
Get a Mac ads get gone?
The ads may not have been to everyone's tastes, usually rather anal people, but I found some quite funny.
That doesn't explain why they've vanished? No doubt it's something sensible to do with them not brining enough switchers and it's time for something new. As I mentioned below, perhaps an advert more on the lines of the iPhone would be better? Show off that OS and iLife etc.
Mitchell & Webb were a fun choice, although odd considering some of their sketches took the piss out of advertising, perhaps an unknown pair may've been better?
Update: The Japanese Get a Mac page has also been
pulled.
Apple by design.
The first Mac was a well
designed machine, but sadly the Mac has become
associated with style over content in some people's
minds. When really it should be the content has
dictated the style, form follows function.
It wasn't always this way, I think people forget the
Mac existed for a long time between the first Mac and
iMac which helped bring the company back to life.
Macs were for a long time
light grey boxes and came in a variety of shapes and
sizes, and not all were that attractive. Just take a
look at Low End Mac.
Yes, that's a
Mac
For years I came across Mac
hating PC users, but style was never part of the
argument as to why Windows was superior. Nobody ever
said, "You're just a fashion victim". It was all mainly
about the OS, the speed of the chips, but not what it
looked like.
Besides, Apple had
licensed the OS in the early 90s and I
had happily used it on Mac Clone, a
Motorola Starmax. I never chose to use
Macs based purely on their design, it's always been
OS first. Which is why a lot of Mac ads have been
disappointing. So they should just focus on the OS,
and less on the case, or humour. Which is where the
iPhone adverts I think are more successful.
Motorola
Starmax
The people I know that
switched to Macs just use their computer more than when
they had a PC, I'm talking normal people at home. Mum's
and friends.
Apple have brought design to our attention, and
although I probably would still use a Mac if it wasn't
that great looking (being it's the OS first for me), I
have come to expect that a Mac will be generally
unobtrusive, which to me helps you focus on just
getting whatever it is you're doing done, with less
distraction (or at least not like it was manufactured
in the eastern block in the 80s)
Gateway PC -
It's a new one, honest!
Apple think more as
computer as appliance, not some sort of hobby in
itself. There are those who think the PC should
be some sort toy for those nerdy back-room boys, a
bit like train sets (not that there's anything wrong
with a train set), but a very male pursuit that you
tinker with and bash, like your old car you've been
doing up in the garage. Apparently it's a very
British thing?
(Oh, and Charlie Brooker,
Macs have had two button mice for along time. It just
doesn't look like it has.)
Why shouldn't a computer not look like a Frankenstein's
monster? Buttons splattered all over and you'd
certainly not want it where anyone could see it. An
ugly thing that you bash your shins on under the desk,
but great for flat pack companies who created a dozen
types of boxes to hide your shame away!
My eyes, will
someone close the doors!
Apple are not perfect, far
from it, but they do have a way of pushing new
technology into the mainstream, which is then copied by
all and sundry. I'm talking more software there, but
Apple were first to get rid of the floppy, and though
vilified at the time, who on earth really wants a
floppy drive now? You may also remember when the iMac
arrived, everything suddenly was coming in transparent
plastic and Compaq stuck coloured bits of
plastic on the front of their Presario PCs, this is design by
decoration.
Compaq Presario
- We do transparent plastic too!
Apple doesn't have an exclusivity on design, and there
are others I'd use if I could take my favoured OS with
me. I think now it's just normal to expect something
well designed, and if I ever end up running Linux, I
probably would want a non-hideous computer to run it
on, call me crazy.
To fault Apple over design
should also mean you're questioning all companies concerned with
improving design.
After years of many people not knowing what a Mac was,
I still find it strange that Apple has risen to such a
well known brand, so I guess they're bound to get some
people's noses out of joint.
So, my point? Macs aren't and never have been just for
those who are design conscious and design isn't just
how something looks, but how well it works as a whole.
Ah well, seems as a Mac user you can't ever win.
Further reading:
From Beige to Bondi
Blue
Mac images
courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc.
MacSpeech Dictate
Until now, to get really decent speech recognition you had to look at the PC, mainly products like Dragon's Natural Speech software.
Well finally there appears to be a decent product for the Mac, without having to rely on BootCamp or a virtualizaiton product. It's called MacSpeech Dictate which uses the same technology behind the Dragon software!
This should free up a lot of people that may have wanted a Mac, but had to go down the PC route because they needed this sort of technology. It's not really just for people too lazy to type, but is an important way to input text for those who may have no other means to do so.
It may be still in Beta, but that didn't stop it picking up a Best of Show award at MacWorld 2008 recently. It should ship in February.
Apple Autogiro G-AXVK
It's an Autogiro (G-AXVK, Campbell Cricket) in old Apple livery. You may remember seeing a similar one in James Bond - You Only Live Twice (1967) called Little Nellie.
I can't remember the programme, it was in July 2005 on
the UK Discovery Channel (+1), but I did take a quick
snap (on the ancient telly).
Why Apple was sponsoring it I do not know, and the only
other images I've found of this
particular Autogiro has it in British Airways livery
in the
late 70s.
Check Off
I write notes in TextEdit, Mail, Stickies, Journler etc. It will probably stay like that until I have Leopard with its notes function in mail.
However; a lot of the time I just want to write a tiny To do note and have found the perfect little application, Check Off.
It lives in your menubar, appearing with a click or short cut key and is just so simple to use. Oh, and it's free.
Give it a try!
Inquisitor 3 & CoverSutra 2
This really is a great add-on to Safari, and well worth downloading.
CoverSutra is my favourite controller and enhancement to iTunes, it's not free, but it just great. Try it, and you'll want to buy it.
Quicktime 7.4 & iTunes 7.6
QuickTime 7.4 addresses security issues and delivers:
- Numerous bug fixes - Support for iTunes
iTunes 7.6 for Mac & Windows
"Rent and download your favourite movies with iTunes on your computer or directly to your living room on Apple TV. Enjoy rented movies in sizes up to 720p HD with surround sound on your Apple TV and sizes up to DVD-quality on your computer. Transfer your rented movies from iTunes to your iPod or iPhone and enjoy them on the go.
Also, purchase and download your favorite TV shows, music, and more directly on your Apple TV. Effortlessly transfer purchases made on Apple TV back to your computer with iTunes."
Start-up Keys
I recently inherited an old
iMac G3 from my brother (thank you).
I love it, I never had one of the original coloured
iMacs, however; it refused to start, instead flashing
the folder question mark at me.
Simple fix you'd think? Just stick in a Mac OS CD, and
off you go! Not quite. Every version of the OS I stuck
in the CD slot, it spat back out. It also ignored an
external USB drive with an OS on.
Puzzled, I thought I'd best try and remember some of
those start-up keys, problem is there are so many and
some are from my Mac OS 9 days, I wonder if any normal
Mac user would remember any?
I tried resetting the PRAM (Preference Ram) etc. which
involved holding down various keys, until I remembered
to just hold down the Option key!
Holding down the Option key at start-up allows you to
decide on which drive to boot your Mac from, in this
case it allowed me to select a Mac OS 9 CD, and finally
started.
Strange, I thought it would've just selected it itself
when putting the CD in, but there you go. It's now up
and running Mac OS 10.3 Panther very happily.
Not everyone will know these various start-up
keystrokes, so I thought I'd provide links (rather than
retyping them all).
Apple's list
and a more in-depth explanation of the keys from
Peachpit.com.
More from Macworld 2008
Time Capsule: Essentially, it's an AirPort Extreme with either a 500GB - £199 or 1TB - £329 hard drive inside. This works with Time Machine to automatically keep your Mac backed up wirelessly. This is the perfect solution for notebook users who don't always remember to plug backup drive in.
Apple TV 2.0: As Steve Jobs announced on stage, this is their second attempt at Apple TV, and it now does seem much more like a useable product, at least in the US. You can now download content directly to the device, rather than just streaming from your computer. This ties into Apple's movie rental deal (sadly, not in the UK yet). You can now rent as well as buy films (again, no films in the UK yet), download music and TV* direct from iTunes and play them on your computer, iPod as well as your Apple TV. So you can sit back and rent HD quality films from your sofa to play on that HD TV of yours, without having to get a HD player or sign up to some service from Virgin or Sky. First generation Apple TV users will get all this with a free software update.
* Apple recently added more TV shows for the UK, mostly US (maybe I do want to catch up on the complete series of V?) but there is now Wallace & Gromit hmm. Sadly, without content from the BBC/Channel 4 etc. it doesn't seem that inviting. Having the movie rental's will, when they arrive. I do like the idea of Apple TV changing how we watch TV, but often with this sort of thing, the technology is ahead of the various countries regulations.
The iPhone software was updated to 1.1.3. This added a pseudo GPS function called locate me in Google Maps, which uses triangulation to find where you are. You can also send text messages to multiple recipients, display lyrics and rearrange your home screen etc.
Many of these features have been added to the iPod Touch in a 1.1.2 update, plus finally Mail! (for £12.99 - there are legal reasons for the fee).
To really get a feel for all these updates, watch the keynote speech. Available as a stream & podcast.
MacBook Air - Macworld 2008
The big news from this
years Macworld Expo was the
MacBook Air, a super lightweight
super thin notebook. It weighs just 1.36 Kg or just
3 pounds, for comparison the previous smallest
notebook, the PowerBook 12" weighed 2.1 Kg.
If you travel a lot, or
as my girlfriend says, find MacBooks too heavy for her
lady like arms, then this is the machine for you. It
may not be a super-sub-notebook, but I find it's the
weight more than the size of a notebook that puts my
back out and this way you still have that 13.3 inch
widescreen.
It has a couple of unique features, other than the
weight & how thin it is. The trackpad now
supports gesturing, like you'd find on the iPhone,
pinching to zoom, three finger side swipe to go back
and forth on a web page. It also has an option for a
solid state hard drive, 64 GB or a standard drive at
80 GB.
The Air comes as a 1.6 Ghz £1,199 or an optional 1.8
Ghz £2,028 with 2GB of memory, built in 802.11n wifi.
Behind a cool flap hides the Audio Out, USB 2.0 and
Micro-DVI for external monitor support and of course, a
built in camera. Full specs can be found
here.
What's missing is the optical drive. This reminds me of
when Apple removed the old floppy drive when
introducing the iMac, people got all hot and bothered
about it, but now who uses floppy drives? Apple will
sell you a USB optical drive (or buy a 3rd party
device), but what's clever is, they've introduced some
clever software, Remote Disc, which allows you to
use an optical drive of another PC or Mac, just as
if it were attached to your machine wirelessly. The
whole point of this machine is to go wireless.
Some have complained about the built-in-battery,
probably the same ones who complained about the iPod, I
don't see it as much of an issue when Apple won't
charge to replace it, plus it's bound to have some
third-party battery replacements for those who don't
mind using a screwdriver, just like the iPod. You just
need to think about what you want, and if the Air ticks
all your boxes, it's for you, if not there's always the
MacBook and Pro.
Apple have put together a handy video tour to explain a
lot of the features here.
Update: Reviews of the MacBook Air
The Ars Technica
Review
MacWorld US
MacWorld US - Fitting files
on
MacWorld US - Migrating
Lower iTunes Prices
Apple have said this is what they wanted to do at the start, but were prevented by the major labels.
The new prices should be available in 6 months.
Reports from the BBC & MacWorld UK
Mac Pro & Xserve Updates
Apple has started the year early, before the MacWorld expo. next week, announcing updates to their Mac Pro and Xserve lines.
The Mac Pro now has 8 cores, that's two Intel Quad-Core Xeon 5400s running up to 3.2Ghz, up to 4.2TB of ram and can fit 4 terabytes into those 4 storage bays. Also new graphics and faster front side bus. Full tech specs.
The Xserves also gain the Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400s up to 3.0GHz. Full specs.