TUAW
Latest
So long, and thanks for all the fish
As you may have heard, TUAW is being archived by its parent company AOL. The 10+ years of content that our talented team of writers and editors have crafted are due be folded into our sister site Engadget, where you'll be able to check out the archives. It's been a long haul for us, from the heady early days of Weblogs, Inc. to the banner years when we had our booths at Macworld Expo. But unlike the popular annual Mac conference's official "on hiatus" status, this website will indeed be shutting down. Several of us plan to continue the fun traditions of TUAW, and then take Apple blogging to places where it didn't go on this site. You'll be able to see us over at Apple World Today starting on February 9, 2015, and we hope that you'll not only join us over at our new home, but help us craft a website that will become what you want it to be. As the TUAW blogging team scatters to the four winds, we all want to thank everyone who ever read the site, joined us for a TUAW Talkcast or TUAW TV Live, visited or partied with us at Macworld/iWorld, and followed us on Twitter or Facebook. Wherever we end up, if you see a familiar name on the byline of a post, say hello and let us know that you're still a part of the Apple community. Oh, and if you're not sure about the reference in the title of this post, you really need to read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. TUAW Bloggers, Present and Past Steve Sande (@stevensande, Apple World Today, podcast) Mike Rose (@miketrose, Geekparent, podcast) Victor Agreda, Jr. (@superpixels, site, video channel) Mike Wehner (@mikewehner, Daily Dot) John Michael Bond (@BondJohnBond, blog) Yoni Heisler (@edibleapple) Dave Caolo (@davidcaolo, Apple World Today, blog) TJ Luoma (@tjluoma, blog) Matt Tinsley (@mtinsleymusic, blog) Richard Gaywood (@PenLlawen, blog) Kelly Hodgkins (@kellyhodgkins, blog) Michael Jones (@tuxtoaster) Erica Sadun (@ericasadun, blog) Chris Rawson (@rawsoncj) Mel Martin (@melmazskies, blog) Brett Terpstra (@ttscoff, website) Mike Schramm (@mikeschramm, blog) Megan Lavey-Heaton (@savvyliterate, Namesake Comic) Christina Warren (@film_girl, Mashable) Scott McNulty (@blankbaby) Josh Carr (@joshcarr__ , ECIOV) Nik Fletcher (@nikf) Chris Ullrich (@ChrisU, The FlickCast) Randy Nelson (@DangerPenguin) Shawn "Doc Rock" Boyd (@DocRock, Macuser.Pro) Kelly Guimont (@verso, The Mac Observer) C.K. Sample III (@cksample, Meatgasm) David Chartier (@chartier, Finer Things In Tech) Dan Pourhadi (@pourhadi, blog) Laurie Duncan (@macsamurai, blog) Jan Kabili (@jankabili) Damien Barrett (@damienbarrett) Jay Savage (@jaysavage) Fabien Serriere Barb Dybwad (@doctorparadox, blog) Dan Lurie (blog) Cory Bohon (@coryb, blog) Robert Palmer (@honestcode, blog) Kevin Harter Casey Johnston (@caseyjohnston, Ars Technica) Joachim Bean John Burke Tim Wasson Mat Lu (@matonmacs) Joshua Ellis (@jzellis, blog) Kurtis Seid (@KurtisSeid) Jason Clarke (@jasonclarke) Brett Kelly (@mrbrettkelly, blog) Aron Trimble (@aront, blog) Samuel Gibbs (@samuelgibbs) Giles Turnbull (@gilest, blog) Rick Martin (@1rick, blog) Michael Grothaus (@michaelgrothaus) David Winograd George Tinari (@gtinari) Andy J. Williams Affleck (@aaffleck) Jessica Buchanan Regina Lizik (@ScarletRegina) David Gluckman John Emmert Lauren Hirsch Ken Ray (@macosken, blog) Sang Tang Kent Pribbernow Todd RItter Dan Fellini Lisa Hoover McGreevy (@lisah) Conrad Quilty-Harper Marc Orchant (RIP) Chris White (@chriswhite) Chad Mumm (@chadmumm) Josh Helfferich (@joshhelfferich) Sam Abuelsamid (@samabuelsamid) Justin Esgar (@justinesgar) Dana Franklin Paige Bierma (@paigebierma) Ross Rubin (@rossrubin, Backerjack) Ben Waldie (@applescriptguru) Ilene Hoffman (@ilenesmachine) Melissa Davis (@themacmommy, The Mac Mommy) My sincere apologies to anyone I missed or for anyone whose information is incorrect or missing. Unfortunately, it won't be fixed anytime soon.
TUAW ceasing publication on February 3, 2015
We're probably the last tech site to report on our own demise, but we ask your forgiveness -- it's been a rough couple of days. Yes, TUAW will be ceasing publication this week. Expect to see our last posts sometime on Tuesday, February 3. You'll probably see some personal farewells from a number of our bloggers between now and then. We have a large, loyal following of readers and we still have the fire in us when it comes to our passion for Apple products. However, TUAW is a small cog in a big machine -- AOL -- and our niche offering did not fit in with the corporate direction for larger content providers such as Engadget and TechCrunch. The corporation is doubling down on all of the large properties, and the resources -- however meager -- being expended on sites like TUAW and Joystiq are being reallocated to fuel that big machine. Like it or not, that's the reality for any major corporation. Don't worry about the TUAW staff; our talent and passion will be put to use elsewhere, and you're sure to see our names pop up wherever there's a need for solid reporting and writing about the world's most successful company -- Apple. We had a great time bringing you the news and reviews on TUAW, and for a while, at least, those articles will be available as part of Engadget. Good luck to all of our readers, stay well, and keep in touch.
My favorite apps of 2014: Mike Wehner
I don't know about you, but 2014 sure sped by for me. It seems like just yesterday I was putting together my list of best apps of 2013, and here I am writing the next chapter now. But when I went back through my pages of iOS apps I realized that it's actually been a pretty long year -- it seriously seems like Monument Valley has been out for a decade, given how many times I've played it -- so here, without further ado, are my favorite apps of 2014. Fling (Free) An awesome idea for an app that has seriously captured my attention for months on end, Fling lets you randomly message up to 50 other people from all over the world, and vice-versa. The result is a massive collection of views, photos, jokes, and blurbs from people you'd never otherwise meet, and it's pretty darn cool. Sure, you have your handful of trolls just trying to find a sexting partner -- ok, maybe "handful" is a bit modest, as there's quite a few of them -- but overall the experience is fantastic. Dark Sky ($3.99) I hate weather apps with the fiery burning rage of a thousand suns. I hate going through pages and scrolling around to see forecasts, I hate how they all seem to find a way to make weather far more complicated than it is, and I hate how often they're just plain badly designed. All those reasons are why I love Dark Sky. It's the un-weather app. Forecasts are as simple as a date and a timeline showing when it's going to precipitate, and there's no digging required, but my favorite feature is on the main screen where the app tells you whether it's going to rain (or snow) within the next hour. The app alerts you when it's about to pour, and that feature alone has saved me many a wet bike ride. I love it. Goat Simulator ($0.99) What else can you say about Goat Simulator other than it's unlike any other game you've ever played. It started as a simple tech demo that spun out of control when the internet became obsessed with the idea of doing obnoxious stunts as a goat. Now it's a game, and a fantastic one at that. Be warned: You definitely have to make your own fun -- it's a bit of a sandbox, really -- but if you have any sense of humor whatsoever you're going to fall in love. Soccer Physics ($1.99) Soccer Physics is barely a sports game, but that's what makes it great. You have one button to control your two-man team and get the ball in the opposing team's goal, and prevent it from landing in your own. That's easier said than done, and even if you let your team sit completely still there's a good chance you'll come out on top, but it's still a blast to play and a great two-player game with a partner. Google Hangouts (Free) Google's Hangouts app used to be pretty horrendous, but the iOS 7 update it received in February 2014 greatly improved things. It's now one of my go-to chat apps thanks to it's speedy and responsive design, and it's also a lot more visually appealing than the past versions. If you tried the Hangouts app after it launched in 2013 and barfed on the floor, I don't blame you, but you should definitely give it another spin as we enter the new year. You'll probably be surprised. Monument Valley ($3.99) Let's not beat around the bush here: Monument Valley is probably in the top 5 of greatest iOS games ever made. It's puzzles are relaxing but challenging, and the game is absolutely gorgeous no matter what device you happen to be playing on. It's well worth its asking price, and its charm will stick with you for a long, long time after you've wrapped up the last levels. Oh, and you're probably going to want to play it again anyway, so that helps, too.
Happy birthday to us! Ten years of TUAW
On this date in 2004, a new website devoted to Apple officially went live. The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) - at that time a property of Weblogs, Inc. - had two bloggers at that point, Laurie Duncan and Barb Dybwad. The co-founders of Weblogs, Inc. were Brian Alvey and Jason Calacanis, both of whom have gone on to bigger and better things. Ever heard of a guy named Mark Cuban? He invested in Weblogs, Inc. (Above: The first TUAW logo) TUAW was one of a handful of "unofficial" sites designed to bring news about hot tech companies to the public. Would you believe that there were once TUGW and TUMW sites that discussed Google and Microsoft? Our highly successful sister site Engadget was also part of the world of Weblogs, Inc., in addition to Joystiq, Autoblog and a number of other websites. What were some of the posts that first day? A quick journey on the Wayback Machine shows that Adam Curry (ex-MTV VJ and credited as inventor of podcasting) was one of the top topics, John Gruber at Daring Fireball was speculating that Apple wouldn't come out with a flash-based iPod, a tome on Mac OS X Backups by Joe Kissell was out from Take Control Books, and Wall Street analysts were beginning to think that Apple might have a chance to grow... (Note that many of these posts were written before the site went live so that content was available the first day). The site really took off in 2005 and has been going strong ever since. Weblogs, Inc. was purchased by AOL, bringing with it changes and a new reporting structure. A redesign brought a new, flashier logo and new writers like Scott McNulty and Dave Caolo. Dave? He's now managing editor for TUAW. About that time a guy by the name of Victor Agreda, Jr. was an incredibly busy commenter -- he eventually got hired on and is, of course, now our editor-in-chief. (TUAW Logo circa 2005) You may remember other TUAW bloggers and editors from the next few years - David Chartier, C.K. Sample III, Mike Schramm, Erica Sadun, Mike Rose, Lisa Hoover, Nik Fletcher, Robert Palmer, Mat Lu, Cory Bohon, Christina Warren, Brett Terpstra and Chris Ullrich among many others. Many of these fine folks have moved on to new careers, are writing for other sites, or have otherwise found their fame and fortune having learned and honed their craft at TUAW. Yours truly didn't show up until the Spring of 2008, not long before a redesign of the site brought it to something resembling the current TUAW. (Today's TUAW logo) Other bloggers who joined us, a few of whom are still with the team, included Chris Rawson, Kelly Hodgkins, TJ Luoma, Mel Martin, Aron Trimble, Michael Grothaus, Megan Lavey-Heaton, Matt Tinsley, Josh Carr, and Ken "Mac OS Ken" Ray. Over the years we had a number of podcasts that came and went, including the Sunday night TUAW Talkcast, the Wednesday afternoon TUAW TV Live, and our daily newscast, the TUAW Daily Update. Fast-forward to today... there's a core of the old school bloggers here at TUAW, and new blood that is keeping things lively. We owe much of the writing these days to Yoni Heisler, Mike Wehner, and John-Michael Bond, plus a large group of writers who are part of Aol's contributor network. I may have missed some of the many writers who have contributed to the heart and soul of TUAW over the past ten years; for that, I apologize. But the most important people for TUAW have been the readers, without whom the site would have no reason to exist. There have been many changes at TUAW over the years; some good, some questionable. We've seen Apple grow from a newly-revived tech company pushing something new called the iPod to an absolute powerhouse of a company with a market capitalization that has reached $700 billion. We saw the death of one of the founders of company and unquestionably its soul, Steve Jobs. Apple's now selling more Macs than ever before, the iPhone and iPad are technological wonders, and the company is thriving. We certainly don't know what the future has in store for TUAW or any of the humans who are the lifeblood of this website. Perhaps by some miracle, we'll be celebrating the 20th birthday of TUAW in another ten years. Whatever happens, we want to offer everyone who has ever been involved with the site and all of our readers over the years a heartfelt "Thank You!" for these ten years of existence.
Play 2048 in your iPhone Today view with new iOS app
Some things exist solely because they can. The new 2048 game (US$0.99) for your iOS Today view isn't a particularly impressive implementation of the game or a great step forward in technology, but darned if we weren't excited to see someone do something novel and fun with widgets. Apple introduced application extensions in iOS 8. These are bundles of code you can add to run in the Today center, as activities in other apps, or as photo editing tools. Developer Minghui Li decided to implement 2048 as a widget. Is this a particularly good implementation? Well, no. Playing directly in the app is far more fun -- and yes, you must install the standalone app to get access to the widget, and then use the Extensions editor in the Today view to install it. Having to use the arrow buttons you see in the widget screenshot are a pain. In the app, you can use standard drag gestures for much better interaction. But hell, if we wanted a good 2048 game, there are lots of other choices on the market. "2048 in Widget!" (exclamation point in original title) really is one of those things you install on your iPhone so you can show it off to other Apple fans and earn the disdain of Android users. We're still having fun with it, but it's probably leaving our TUAW phone in a week or two.
Yes, our podcasts are gone but no, we're not going anywhere
While it's a sad thing to sunset any fun project like our long-running Talkcast, TUAW TV and Daily Update podcasts, the practical upshot is that this frees us up to work on some other projects. We think you're going to like what we're cooking up! The first big thing we've got coming up is Slices of Apple, which debuts this Friday and will run every Friday for a few months. It's an inside look at what makes Apple tick and we're really excited about some of the valuable business information in it. Stay tuned, we've got lots more to share!
Pulling the trigger on Kindle Unlimited
After Kindle Unlimited launched today, we entered a lively debate in the TUAW backchannels about this new service. Nearly everyone agreed that Amazon had once again set a high bar for Apple to respond to, but not everyone was immediately ready to sign up for this monthly product that offers unlimited text and audio lending for US$10/month. For the parents among us, our initial reaction was "Whoa! Let us go forth and save money!" Kelly Hodgkins, mother of many, became one of the earliest TUAW adopters of the service. Mike Rose, whose daughter has already spent $170 of gift cards on Summer reading, could immediately see the appeal. Your $120 yearly membership (30 days free, cancel at any time) offers access to a library of 600,000+ titles, which sounds like a lot but may not include the books you specifically need to read. Of my children's Summer reading lists, not a single title was available through Unlimited. I went through our purchases for the last 60 days and could not find any item we had bought included in the Unlimited library. These included EL Doctorow's "Ragtime", Sonia Nazario's "Enrique's Journey", Kazuhiro Fujitaki's "The Manga Guide to Electricity", Charbonneau's "Graduation Day", Kiera Cass's "The One", Tom Doyle's "American Craftsman", Robert Galbraith's "The Silkworm", among others -- a mix of required reading and fun. After searching my recent transactions, it became clear to me how limited the library really is. I'm letting my credit card stay cool for now. And, of course, you don't get to "keep" any books you borrow -- even for DRM-values of "keep" in today's digital market. For those with flexible reading tastes, the Kindle library has a lot going for it. You don't have to wait for ebooks the way you do at your local library. You can borrow more than one title a month, unlike the standard Prime benefit. Kindle Unlimited includes unlimited audio from "thousands of audiobooks", which is a godsend for commuters. What do you think about Kindle Unlimited? Are you going to jump aboard? Or are you waiting for the library to expand to include more desirable reading material? Drop a comment and share. %Poll-88856%
Dear Aunt TUAW: Are pixels doomed?
Dear Aunt TUAW, Today I've been reading rumors of new iPhones all over the interwebs. Everyone's talking about 3x resolutions and 1704 x 960 displays. Help me, Aunt TUAW -- is my Retina display doomed? Thanks, Your Nephew David X. Dear David, Your Retina iPhone is not doomed. Apple's Retina technology packs in tight pixels for resolution excellence and has been a certain winner. Uncle Rich's coverage of what Retina means is a must-read if you're interested in learning more about the subject. Today's rumor suggests that Apple might pack a new iPhone with even more pixels than ever. Auntie is not going to take a position one way or the other on whether it makes sense to introduce another resolution style. All the developers she talked with this morning reacted with horror tinged with a certain intrigue when approached on the matter. Here are some basic facts... If the iPhone 5 had used a non-retina display, its screen would have presented 181,760 pixels at a time, a quarter of the 727,040 it actually uses and a ninth of the 1,635,840 rumored pixels for the iPhone 6. But compared to a current iPad air with its 3,145,728 pixels that's just pocket change. What developers are particularly worried about is having to stuff yet another image resolution into their already bloated applications. With the baseline iPad air packing only 16 GB, and apps having to already support image assets for non-retina and retina distributions on both tablet and phone families, it's hard to think that Apple would force yet another set of images into everyone's distributions. Auntie is hoping that Apple will introduce native vector support for the "UIImage" class in iOS 8. Describing images as rescalable vectors would massively shrink those app bundles. Sure it takes a bit more processing time to scale and display vectors than to present simple images, but they'd provide a great way to design images that would automatically scale without blurriness no matter what kind of screen was thrown at them. In fact, popular developer icon resource Glyphish just announced a "Complete" bundle with full vector icon support, to scale up the art as needed. (Photographic images would still pose an issue, and they're never going to go away, unless Apple throws in some kind of magic fractal compression solution as well.) Auntie suggests you wait a few weeks and then poke a developer after WWDC. The image APIs introduced this year will probably deliver some strong hints as to whether the rumored August product launches will stretch the definition of Retina or not. Hugs, Auntie T.
Slingshot delivers business-class iOS and PC screen sharing
Slingshot, the latest offering from the makers of Reflector and Air Parrot, introduces a paradigm for business-class screen sharing that pushes meeting software to new levels. If you're familiar with live-meeting/webcast services (like join.me, for example) you'll have encountered server-ware that enables you to share your desktop out to groups for demonstrations and presentations. The current generation provides support for phone chats, text messages, and so forth. Slingshot takes all that functionality and bumps it up. Like its competitors, this software is aimed at the business and education markets, offering both one-to-one and one-to-many sharing. It adds some really splendid features like iOS screen sharing, individual OS X app screens, and participant control. With Slingshot, you can demo your apps and present screens anywhere in the world. When testing, the TUAW team was really pleased by the quality of transmission and the ability of any participant to share materials from their system. Slingshot allows users to share individual desktop apps, their entire desktop, or to screen share from iOS via AirPlay. Each participant may opt in to use a local camera feed and microphone as well. (The service plan you select sets limits on how many cameras may participate.) Our tests made it clear, however, this was early release software. We encountered audio drop outs, software crashes, and some odd video glitches. Despite those, we were all really impressed by the feature set and overall design quality. While the service is still young, it shows great promise. Slingshot works by subscription. After a 30-day full feature trial, its plans range from 1-to-1 connections for $10/month ($110/year) to an enterprise-worthy model at $100/month ($1000/year) for up to 25 users, 5 camera feeds, and phone support. Budget-minded users might want to stick with join.me's free single-screen sharing service and Squirrel's existing Reflector app, but companies and schools with more spending flexibility will find Slingshot to offer a good feature set. We recommend you decide for yourself with the free month trial. A feature video follows below.
TUAW TV Live: Form factors and other delights
All the talk these days about forthcoming Apple devices seems to focus on one thing -- form factors, AKA "how big the screen is". With the iPhone, there's a lot of talk about a larger display, and despite the fact that the iPad already comes in two main sizes (mini and Air), people are making comments about an even larger form factor. So, Doc and I will take this as our starting point for our usual rambling discussion today, then moving off to the rest of our fun things including our software and hardware picks of the week, our tips of the week for either iOS or OS X, and of course the weekly trivia contest! Shawn "Doc Rock" Boyd and I will be getting the show started at around 5 PM EDT today. Note that things are a wee bit different from in the past -- you'll still need to visit us over on the dedicated stream and chat page at http://tuaw.com/tuawtvlive -- but the stream will be coming to you via YouTube. There are some nice things there, like a screen that will tell you how long until we're going live, or if we're a bit late you'll see a "starting soon" screen. This week's show will be embedded in the space below as soon as possible. You can also watch past episodes of TUAW TV Live on YouTube.
WWDC for fun and tickles
It's that time of year again! This morning, when Apple announced its WWDC dates and opened its new lottery system, potential attendees started going crazy attempting to book flights and hotel rooms in the hope they'd get lucky. This morning thousands of developers signed up for a chance to pay $1600 (not to mention those hotel and flights) to participate in one of the most valuable -- but exclusive -- events on the Apple social calendar. Some tell me they're planning to travel regardless of whether they do or do not win that golden ticket. With a major swell in third party conferences and landing zones, WWDC has spilled out from the walls of Moscone into a much wider community event. Think of Burning Man, but with better dressed attendees... (If you like, you can skip the word "better" in that sentence.) Some developers I talked to this morning were busy contemplating a startup selling souvenir badges. "Why feel outcast when you can purchase a fake attendee thing to hang around your neck. You can walk around SF looking like a real hipster!" I don't believe they were being entirely serious. Meanwhile, others were busy carefully dissecting the new announcement art. Although we at TUAW still think it looks a bit like a horse's behind, we're curious about the suggestion it creates of display technology and pixels. Very intriguing if so. What do you think of the artwork? Any secret clues? Share your thoughts in the comments and tell us what you think about the new WWDC sign up system. Love it? Hate it? Fear it? Also, if you have any third party events you're organizing or planning to participate in, please drop us a line! We'd love to hear about it.
Orderly: To do lists with lots of gestures
Orderly (US$0.99) is exactly the kind of app that I normally don't write about in posts. It's a good example of a somewhat okay app that was released too early without proper testing and development, and lacking in any number of killer features. Despite my reservations, I was encouraged to write this post to give a sense about apps that really don't fall into the "must buy" or "exquisitely awful" categories that you normally read about. The developer's pitch letter says, This has great 5 star ratings so far. This app is unique in the sense, it purely uses iPhone gestures in the most comfortable and natural way to create and manage TODOs on your iPhone. Sadly it does not deliver on this promise. Orderly is a to do list. It's pretty enough (despite an unoriginal icon) and was built to leverage gesture-based interaction. It starts with 11 pages of tutorial overviews before you jump into the app itself. Once in, the app is pretty easy to figure out despite those 11 pages. For example, you tap + to create a new to do list. There's even a pretty animated transition from the overviews to the detail screen. Here's an example of where the app disappoints. In the following video, I attempt to navigate between the detail and overview screen. Keep in mind the principal of least astonishment as you watch this. First, I end up tapping somewhere by accident and the screen flips on me. Then I use the un-pinch-to-zoom feature to go from overview to detail. That gesture is non-reciprocal. I cannot use similar gestures to move back to the previous state. Instead, I must tap the "<" button which, for iOS users, has a very specific meaning in navigation terms. That meaning is slightly distorted here. Finally, the actual animation back shows artifacts. None of this is damning -- the accidental touch at the start is entirely my fault -- but as reviewers we do notice the rest. We're looking for a slick interactive experience and this isn't it. When I pulled out a hardware keyboard to test text entry, I received another surprise. The app doesn't take that hardware into account. The text remains "indented" into the portion of the screen normally usable when the on-screen keyboard is shown. If you ask why this video is "on its side," that's because the app was apparently never tested on an iPad, let alone with hardware text entry -- a natural accessory for entering large quantities of text in an app that revolves around text. It's about at this point, where I normally make the review/don't review decision. There were enough quirks to prompt me to move onto the next item in my inbox. Only Dave's request that I showcase the exploration process brought this post to life. Had everything else worked properly, I would have tested the app over a few days in real life scenarios and then written up my overview. An app as pretty as this deserves better. Despite really good intentions, the developer failed to deliver the kind of product that earns a TUAW recommendation.
iOS 7.1's new shift key icons are rad
"What's the matter with the shift key icon, honey? It's still Rock & Roll to me" -- Surprisingly not actual lyrics by Billy Joel Today, as 7.1 rolled in, major complainage could be heard echoing through the TUAW back channels. "OMG," the afflicted cried, "The world is at an end -- Apple has redesigned the shift key icons!" Our very own Dave Caolo even wrote about the change, saying that "It's a good change overall but will take some getting used to." For comparison's sake, here are the old versions. It's not exactly Malum in se as if Apple committed murder or wore white after Labor Day. And, if you're paying attention, the back delete button also got a little refresh. Me? I rather like 'em. The new shift and shift-lock icons are identifiable at a glance as being engaged and ready. They differ in color, with the lock adding an extra line underneath. And they've finally moved past those Unicode-y feeling outlines. These updates are fine. %Poll-87512%
iPhone 3G mini? Looks legit to me
Apparently all you need to do to knock off an imaginary Apple product is put "Mini" on the back in really crappy vinyl lettering. [Photo credit: Juska Wendland]
TUAW by social media, podcast or newsletter
The fact that you're reading this now means you've found TUAW. Welcome! Did you know we have three fabulous podcasts to subscribe to? First there's our weekly call in show, the TUAW Talkcast. We hope you'll join us for the next live taping, but if you miss it you can listen on iTunes. There's also the Daily Update, which is an audio digest of the day's news. Our newest podcast is quite young and a little shy, but a lot of fun and lasts under 30 minutes. TUAW One-to-One is just one guest, one host and a topic, not always directly related to Apple. It's a great way to get to know the people who make stuff you probably use every day. Almost every week you can tune in for Ask TUAW Live via Google Hangout, and get your questions answered in real time by a former Apple Genius. Then there's TUAW TV Live, with a look at what's topical. We're also on Facebook, Twitter and Google+, where we post deals regularly and sometimes post articles that don't quite fit on the main site. Oh and we've got a tumblr page for the really weird stuff. Look for giveaways this summer on our social media accounts. TUAW offers an "app newsletter" sent out daily, wrapping up our reviews and news for apps. You can sign up on the right hand side of this page, just look for this box:
How To: Taking screenshots of Time Machine
Last week, I worked on a TUAW post about ways people talk themselves out of using Time Machine. At one point in the post I needed to show a screenshot that demonstrated how to remove individual backups. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that you cannot perform normal screenshots while engaged in the Time Machine interface. So what I did was step back and mess around a bit at the OS X command line to see if I couldn't get around that problem. Be warned that this solution uses the Unix terminal. If you are unfamiliar with that utility app, you'll probably want to skip the rest of this post. The screencapture utility can be found in /usr/sbin. It enables you to grab images from the screen and save them either to a file or, as I wanted to do, the clipboard. What I needed to do was set the screen capture in motion, enter Time Machine, set up my shot and only then have the screen grabbed on my behalf. Fortunately, screencapture offers a time offset that allows you to delay the shot however many seconds into the future via the -T option. You supply a number, in my case I used 20 seconds, and then have time to set up. Once the shot is captured, you hear a camera shutter sound and you can retrieve the image you've created. The exact options I used were as follows. The -c option stores the image to the system pasteboard (commonly called the clipboard, hence the "c"). The -m option shoots only the main screen (I use multiple monitors). % screencapture -c -T20 -m Together, this provided me a sweet solution for providing visual access to a screen that I couldn't normally capture.
The many ways to get TUAW in your ears
As we begin the new year, I'd like to quickly remind our readers that TUAW also comes in a handy audio format, now in several flavors. You can catch our Daily Updates by evening, and they are a quick wrap-up of the day's top news stories (also available on iTunes and Stitcher). Or dig a little deeper with our weekly Talkcast on iTunes, or you can participate live. Finally there's our new 1:1 podcast, which debuted last month and is available on iTunes as well.
Avatron Kickstarts Everydisk project for secure personal cloud storage
The remote data field is dominated by powerhouses like Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, SugarSync and so on. Whether you're looking for a hardware network-attached storage (NAS) solution or a cloud-storage server, there's probably a vendor or 10 you've already heard of. Now, iOS/Mac development house Avatron is attempting to step into this crowded arena. Avatron's new Everydisk Kickstarter hopes to securely serve your files from your home system to wherever you are. The big selling point behind Everydisk is its unlimited NAS-like storage. You get access to your entire disk, not just a special folder, the way you would with Dropbox and not just a standalone drive, as you would with PogoPlug or Transporter. According to the Avatron team, Everydisk creates its own secure tunnel between your computer and your access point, using Diffie-Hellman key exchange, offering you a way to confidently grab the materials you need. Avatron's hoping its combination of heightened privacy, unlimited storage and full disk access will set it apart from the current crop of competition. It's built around the same Air Connect technology used for Air Login, an app many of us here at TUAW have used and liked. As Avatron founder Dave Howell puts it, "It's basically like Back to My Mac, but it isn't broken. And it's like a VPN except it's easy to use and supports Bonjour and other UDP-based services." Their Kickstarter has about three weeks to go and is currently at about 19 percent pledged. The available pledges offer discounted subscription access to the service once it ships. When we last checked, nearly all the super-discount early bird offers had been claimed, but there are still some excellent values to be had.
New year, new TUAW hardware reviews
Over the years, TUAW has dramatically increased the number of hardware reviews that are published. This year, we'll be changing the way we do our product reviews to not only make it possible for us to publish even more reviews, but to give our readers a much easier way to compare items in the same product category. To start with, we're cutting down the average length of a product review. There is more raw information and less in terms of descriptive prose, so that you can get to the meat of a review quickly without poring through a 1,500-word description. Each item reviewed now receives a star rating as well. Hardware receives a rating from zero to four stars, with four stars being a world-class product that has few equals, while zero-star products should be avoided at all costs. Our reviews will also include links to previous reviews of similar items, in order to make it simple for you to make comparisons. Note that we're transitioning from our old format, so you may still see the occasional long-format review. As with any new process, there are sure to be a few bumps in the road as we gain familiarity with the new format, but we appreciate your feedback. If you have any comments as we move ahead, please use the "Tip Us" button at the upper-right side of this page to send them to us.
How to: Disabling iTunes song notifications
Was it only a year or two ago that we posted instructions on how to add "what's playing" notifications to iTunes? These days, we're fielding requests on how to turn the darn notifications off. Yesterday, our own Ilene H was haunting the TUAW back channel trying to figure out how to de-Mavericks her iTunes, so they wouldn't keep popping up as she was working. Fortunately for Ilene and other iTunes users, there's an easy fix. Just hop into iTunes and navigate to Preferences > General. In the Notifications section, uncheck the "When song changes" box and bob's your uncle. Those iTunes updates will stop popping up and you can get on with your work.
