macworld07
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POW! THWAK! Comic Life updated
Notwithstanding the pre-beta Skitch product announcement, the Plasq crew have been busy as beavers (despite having never met in person before Macworld; talk about your distributed development teams) on their already-released products. Comic Life 1.3 is out for download now and includes: Visual preview of styles an "Email" button to send comics directly from Mail.app, Entourage, Eudora or AOL Publish your comic to iWeb Copy and paste Comic Life elements to other apps Speech and thought balloons now have "Multi-tail" capability :-) Multiple images per panel and more. CL 1.3 requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher; the upgrade is a free download for owners of the retail, Deluxe or bundled editions.Thanks Matthew!
How the iPhone might be sold unlocked
Loyal reader Sammual pointed us to this post from a "Cingular tier 2 call center tech" where he discusses his impressions of Cingular (not positive), Stan Sigman (ditto), and All Things Steve (big thumbs up). "Jolly Roger" presents the thesis, in a long but interesting diatribe, that the iPhone will actually be sold UNlocked, at least in Apple stores. You would then activate the phone with Cingular or, surreptitiously, with another GSM carrier.My feeling is that this theory may be colored by JR's self-described soul-numbing experience working for Big Wireless. It seems evident that some of the announced features of the iPhone (visual voicemail, EDGE data) are going to be very tightly carrier-linked. Assuming it was even possible to use the phone on T-Mobile or other GSM networks, would it be worth it without all the bells and whistles? Granted, the device is spec'ed as a quad-band GSM unit, so it will roam internationally... guess we'll find out the truth come summertime.Thanks Sam![via ApplePhoneAddict]
MacMod booth tour
The mad modders at MacMod have their very own booth at Macworld this year with a myriad of mods on hand for your enjoyment. Go check them out and say hello at booth N4320 in the oft-neglected North Hall of the Moscone Center. While you're there, grab a Sharpie and autograph the PowerMac to be a part of the community mod project!Check out the Gallery for pictures we took of some of the mods currently on display at the booth.
Where does Apple go from here?
Thirty years ago was just the beginning, you say? So now what? What's the next act? Where does Apple Inc, née Apple Computer, go from here?Steve Jobs and Apple have reinvented or revolutionized so many things over the years, it's hard to imagine what their next big move will be. I don't mean new operating systems and general hardware upgrades. I mean new ground. First the personal computer, then the way we listen to music and view photos and video - at home and on the go - and now they've made the phone and PIM their own, with the iPhone. So what's next? Apple has already invaded our offices and our living rooms, our cars, our bedrooms, our nursery, our closets, our gym, and even our bathroom! Will they invade our kitchen next? Our lawns? Is an Apple iFridge far off? iMower anyone? Seriously... on what area of our lives can Apple possibly still leave its mark?
iPhone video and Greg Joswiak interview from WSJ
Rex Crumb from MarketWatch and the Wall Street Journal snagged an interview with Apple's Vice President of iPod marketing, Greg Joswiak. Greg talked about the iPhone and its awesomeness, of course, and Rex gets some rare hands-on video, too!Although some of the footage is stock from the Keynote, there's also some real-live, hot hand-on-iPhone action. It's hard not to notice that while they are talking, Greg never lets the iPhone out of his own hands, whereas you'd normally expect to see the interviewer at least get to hold the thing. Clearly there are some pretty strict rules in place about who gets to touch one of the few demo units. Even Uncle Walt only got to handle it for a few minutes - but there's no video proof of that, so we'll have to take his word for it.Thanks, Steve!
Beta Beat: Parallels RC1 (Build 3120) released
Parallels just posted their latest build (Build 3120) for download here (dmg). The new version boasts a lot of improvements, including better USB support for web cams, external hard drives, printers and scanners, virtual CD/DVD drives ("Burn CDs and DVDs directly in virtual machines, and play any copy-protected CD or DVD just like you would on a real PC"), improved Coherence and Boot Camp support, and bundled "Transporter RC" plus lots of bug fixes. In related news, Parallels Desktop won the MacWorld Expo 2007 "Best in Show". Thanks Kevin Duerr.
Booth tours in the galleries
We've been combing the extensive Macworld Expo 2007 floor since Tuesday and have posted some more booth tour galleries for your viewing enjoyment. Almost everyone has a presence here of some sort (sadly, almost), so we're doing our best to hit as may of the booths we can. As of this post, we have a couple handfuls of booths up, including Belkin, Crumpler, iSkin, Marware and plenty more, with even more on the way. If you couldn't make it to Macworld, these booth tours and video coverage are your next best chance.
iPhone: Intel not inside
I was just wondering out loud to Hadley Stern of AppleMatters tabout the chip that powers the iPhone. Looks like I can cross Intel off my list of suspects. Intel and Apple both confirm that there is no Intel silicon in the iPhone. Apple didn't say who is the chip maker for the iPhone.Interestingly, Intel is powering the Apple TV. I wonder which Intel chip, the smart money says it is powered by Viiv.Thanks, Scotto.
Apple booth tour at Macworld 07
It isn't quite so much a 'booth tour' as it is 'the biggest darn thing on the floor, bar none.' Apple is seriously pimping their two major forays into consumer electronics, and their gargantuan floor signage, two massive demonstration stages and rotating glass iPhone cases all but scream it out loud. Mac OS X Leopard, at least what we've already seen, is also on stage in between Apple TV and iPhone demos, and surrounding their staging area are long kiosk areas with consumer and pro level products and software laid out for exhibitors to play with if the Apple Store down the street is too busy.Check out our gallery of Apple 'booth' shots, and stay tuned for more booth tours both big and small.
Keeping the iPhone Under Wraps
Fortune Magazine has a nice article on the challenges Apple faced in keeping the iPhone under wraps for the 30 months or so it was in development. When you think about the number of folks who must have been involved, not only at Apple, but also at Cingular, Google, Yahoo, and an "unnamed Asian manufacturer," it really was pretty amazing that it was kept this quiet for this long. As the article notes "pillow talk was a challenge... Keeping secrets from loved ones is especially hard." I had never thought about that, but it's hard to imagine being satisfied with a response like "that's classified" when your spouse works at Apple, not the NSA![Via Digg]
Skitch
As a blogger here on TUAW I probably take an unusually high number of screenshots. I always have Grab and ImageWell running, so I can snag some pics of websites or of apps in action. That is, I always had Grab/ImageWell running, until I visited Plasq's booth on the Macworld showfloor.Move over ImageWell: I have a new love, and its name is Skitch. Skitch is currently in a very private beta (we're talking single digit users at the moment), but the good folks at Plasq assure me that more info will be available next week. Skitch simplifies the way you take screenshots on your Mac. Think of it as a WYSIWYG screenshot taker (that's What You See Is What You Get) with the added bonus of making uploading those pics to a remote server (via FTP, SFTP, .Mac, or Flickr to name a few) dead simple. And it doesn't stop there; Skitch can also take pictures using your iSight and allows you to add text, doodles, and arrows to those images (and each of those elements is inserted onto its own layer, but Skitch handles all that... you need not interact directly with the layers).Read on for a screenshot, though it really doesn't tell the whole story of this innovative UI.
Apple VPs confirm no 3rd party iPhone apps
The lucky Gizmodo guys got their paws on an actual iPhone plus an hour of Q&A with some Apple VPs. Here are some of their scoops: The OS isn't going to be "OS X for real." It's more like a pseudo-OS X and, like the iPod, it will not have a public API and open development. This confirms what Dan posted earlier today about no user-installable apps. Which is a shame. I'd really love to see the iPod and iPhone get opened up for more third party software. The screen is the same polycarbonite material as the iPod overlaid with a touch element. Finally, there won't be any WiFi or cellular data syncing, only sync-via-docking.Thanks Matt
Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Mac Compatibility
Lots of news coming out of Macworld, of course, but this one caught my eye: Seagate has announced Mac compatibility with the software for its OneTouch III Mini line of portable USB hard drives. The software offers security (password protection) and standard Backup features -- i.e. schedule backups or utilize the OneTouch button -- but also a great-looking folder-based Sync option: select your Music folder, for instance, on one Mac, back it up on the drive and sync it with the Music folder on another. It's even possible to modify the files on the drive directly, and sync the changes back to your machine.The drives come in 80GB ($129), 120GB ($169), and 160GB ($229) capacities and are available now. Check out their website for more details, and check TUAW in the near future for a full review.
Nic Carr on the iPhone
Nic Carr has a quick op-ed up over at RoughType that's worth popping by to read. In it, he contrasts Bill Gates with Steve Jobs. Gates, he says, pitches a "'digital lifestyle' that nobody wants...[suggesting] that people want nothing more than to be network administrators." Jobs, in contrast, "is not interested in amateur productions". Carr suggests that Jobs separates the design from the audience, producing usable tools rather than general workflows. It's clear to me that Apple is heading ever more in the direction of digital appliances (the iPhone, AppleTV, etc), but this is also the same company that brings us XCode and Interface Builder. Clearly Apple knows the difference between users and developers and is building their product line to enhance that difference. Just like Macworld is in January and WWDC is in the Summer. Thanks Joel Martin.
Macworld 2007 party roundup for Wednesday, January 10th
Macworld certainly isn't all work and no play, so I thought it would be handy to round up any parties and gatherings that are happening *off* the Macworld Expo grounds. For simplicity, I checked Upcoming's Macworld tag, though we have heard of at least one other non-listed event (and I would bet there are plenty more). If you have a gathering going on this week, let us know at tuaw.com/tips (use relevant subjects like: "Party at Macworld Wednesday!" and "Party at Macworld Thursday!" etc.) and we'll include them in our daily roundups, updating as we receive new tips through the day. For now, here is a list of Wednesday's gatherings: Spymac.com Annual Reader Meetup, 5:30-6:30 pm Macworld Expo Web Developers BoF 6-7:30 pm Mac small business dinner 6:30-8:30 pm DialyTechTalk's open Macworld party at 9 pm MyDreamApp/MacHeist party at 7-11 pm
XtremeMac announces Apple TV cables and switcher
XtremeMac has just announced a new product line developed especially for Apple TV. You might have noticed that cables are not included with the Apple TV, but XtremeMac has you covered. They the following cables for preorder: audio ($14.95, 2 meters) component ($19.95, 2 meters) HDMI>DVI ($19.95, 2 meters) HDMI>HDMI ($19.95, 2 meters) TOSLINK ($19.95, 2 meters) They also announced the XtremeHD 4-Port switcher, with remote. This switcher plugs into the one HDMI input on your HDTV and makes available 4 HDMI ports for your peripherals, including the Apple TV. You can switch from input to input via a button on the front or with the included remote. Best of all, it has the same dimensions as the Apple TV so you can stack 'em. The XtremeHD 4-Port switcher will be available in February. Pricing hasn't been announced.
TUAW video: Apple TV demo
Yesterday we got a little demo of the Apple TV. Take a look at the video, and hopefully it puts the product in a little perspective for you.Update: We're fixing an issue with the video, it should be back up shortly.Update II: All fixed.
Will the iPhone cannibalize iPod sales? Or vice versa?
Yesterday, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. It is clearly the next generation of iPod. It's the full-screen video iPod we've waited for. It's the full-color fully-designed interface we've waited for. It's the fully-connected wifi and bluetooth device we've waited for. And that doesn't even mention the built in speakers and microphone. So why does it have to be an iPhone? Surely there's a huge market out there who wants all these features but who doesn't want the Cingular piece of the action. Of course, many of you will rightly point out that one can purchase the iPhone, maybe even use the iPhone to good effect, without using the phone itself. The included two year contract is a bit of a stumbling block, especially if monthly charges (which I'm still really unclear about) apply. So why not offer a phone-less iPod? It doesn't have to wait for FCC approval except insofar as any Bluetooth or WiFi device might need some paperwork done. Why not sell a basic "true fullscreen video iPod" at the $299 price point that removing the phone hardware might allow, to the large market of iPod upgraders who'd jump on buying one like a starving Georgia Tech student on barbeque? My guess is that introducing a phone-less iPod would cannibalize early sales of the iPhone. Of all the goodies introduced about the phone, it's the phone component that's the least glamorous. Sure, a lot of us would pay a premium to carry fewer gadgets in our pockets. Combining the iPod and the phone and a lot of the PocketPC features makes sense--and I tell you as a PocketPC user, that the iPhone does not score too well on the PocketPC range of capabilities--but it also takes a lot of choice out of the equation for those of us under existing phone contracts who are looking for a better iPod and not necessarily an iPhone. So when do we see an actual G6 iPod sans the phone connectivity? Your guess is as good as mine.
AppleTV requires iTunes 7.1
We may be living in a 7.0.2 world, but AppleTV seems destined for an iTunes 7.1 one. Eagle eyed TUAW reader Chris Hileman points us to evidence of iTunes 7.1's imminent release. Pop over to the AppleTV specs page and check out the system requirements. Along with Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later and Win XP SP2, you'll find iTunes 7.1. Since AppleTV will be released sometime next month, maybe we can look forward to an iTunes upgrade as well.
iPhone on MySpace
I'm pretty sure that this MySpace page comes from a fan, and not from Apple, but it still made me chuckle. The iPhone is listed as being male, 30 years old, with 0 friends. There's a bit of the Apple hype cut and pasted onto the page. For more iPhone goodness, take a look at all the Flickr photos tagged with iPhone. There are almost 2000 of them last time I checked, showing the same wonderful iPhone/Apple fanbase as the MySpace page. Further, the iPhone announcement looks to be the 2nd most dugg story in the last year. Go fanboys!Thanks Mr. Lizard
