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Irish Prime Minister visits Apple's European headquarters
One week after Apple announced it would create another 500 jobs at its European headquarters in Cork, Ireland, the employees there got a visit from none other than Ireland's Prime Minister Enda Kenny. The visit happened yesterday, reports MacWorld UK, and during that time Kenny was snapped chatting with Apple employees, though it's not known exactly what he talked about. There's no doubt the news of 500 new jobs pleased the PM, as Ireland is one of the EU countries most affected by the current recession. Apple's headquarters and plant in Cork is not only the home of all of Apple's European operations, but it's also an assembly point for the MacBook Pro. Apple's current plant in Cork was opened in 1980 and was the first non-US headquarters for the company. The location now employs 2,800 people who work in backend, supply chain and distribution operations for Europe. Apple plans to add the additional 500 jobs over the next 18 months.
Replacing iDisk with online storage of your own
With the June 30, 2012 death of Apple's MobileMe service looming just a little over two months away, some Mac users are still wondering what to do to replace one of the keystone pieces of the service -- iDisk. Macworld's Glenn Fleishman provided some tips today on how to replace iDisk with your own online storage using some common Mac apps that let you treat a remote FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, or Amazon S3 server like a Mac volume. The trick, says Fleishman, is to get file-sharing access via a hosting company or a storage system like Amazon S3, Google Storage, or Rackspace Cloud Files, and then use either Nolobe Software's Interarchy (US$30) or Panic's Transmit ($34) to create a Mac-mountable volume. Of the two Mac apps, Fleishman notes that Transmit works most like the default mode of iDisk. It provides a glimpse into the remote server's file structure, but doesn't download or sync files locally. As such, if you need to open a large remote file to edit it on the Mac, you must first wait for the file to be downloaded. After an edit is made, saving the file requires the file to be uploaded back to the source. That can definitely take some time. Interarchy's Net Disk feature is more like iDisk with synchronization enabled, allowing a Net Disk to synchronize changes to your computer, from your computer to the server, or in both directions. This ends up working more like Dropbox, where files are stored locally instantaneously, but then synchronize with the server behind the scenes. Fleishman includes instructions on how to create a mountable disk using either Transmit or Interarchy. Just remember to get your iDisk replacement into place prior to June 30th!
Macworld's Jason Snell says what we're all thinking about iTunes
Those of you who remember iTunes when it was new, when it was merely a revamped version of SoundJam MP, will sympathize the most here. iTunes used to be a great tool for playing music and ripping CD's. Then the iTunes music store came along and it was good. Then apps came along and iTunes went bananas. Jason Snell, Macworld's editorial director, argues iTunes needs an overhaul, and I couldn't agree more. In fact, I had a post on this subject (likening iTunes to Vista, in fact) waiting in the wings for two years now, but I think Snell has hit upon the salient points in his article. Namely: Sync is terrible (and slowly being outdated by pure cloud goodness) and iTunes has become a bloated monster of an application. On a Mac, anyway -- it was always a pretty lousy experience on Windows. Anyone who has tried to manage more than 50 or so apps will tell you what a pain that experience is, let alone the myriad other eccentricities and failures of interface iTunes provides. One of my personal bugaboos are modal dialog boxes. These are pop up windows that usually feature a choice like OK and Cancel and report something went wrong, but the main thing is they require you to click on them before you can do something else. iTunes is chock full of these! From errors galore (I don't know that any Apple software I've used in the 30 years I've been using Apple products has ever thrown as many error messages as iTunes) to just stupid things like warning that some apps couldn't be installed (ad nauseam), iTunes is Apple's most modal window-crazy software maybe EVER. It's a huge impediment to progress, in my opinion, and makes for a horrible user experience. I'd dare say iTunes is the one app consumers simply "put up with" because the rest of the Apple experience is quite good. Also, if you never have errors in iTunes or manage a tiny library, you may never experience too much pain with it. What do you think? Do you wake up each day happy to click in iTunes, or do you dread it like a tooth pulling?
Apple WALT prototype hits eBay, reminds us of a life with landlines
As it turns out, Apple too used to announce products at trade shows... only to never actually ship them. Back in the halcyon days of the early '90s, Apple revealed the WALT (Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone) at Macworld Boston, touting a fairly amazing feature set. Things like a touchscreen, handwriting recognition, fax support, an address book, caller ID, online banking and a speakerphone set it apart from the landline devices of its day, and being that it was co-developed with Bell South, it's pretty clear that your pops had his eye one at some point. Those looking to relive the corporate boom of one-nine-nine-to-the-tres can plunk down $8,000 of 2012's dollars at the eBay link below; just don't expect it to work out of the box, okay?[Thanks, TS]
Apple FileVault 2 encryption cracked, but don't panic
FileVault 2 is a feature of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion that provides a way to encrypt a full disk drive so that it can only be used by those who know a password ... until now, that is. Passware, a company that makes forensic software used to recover lost passwords or open encrypted files to police and others, has announced that their Passware Kit Forensic 11.4 software (US$995) can extract the keys to FileVault 2 in an average of 40 minutes. Password was able to recover data from FileVault 2 encrypted drives regardless of the length and complexity of passwords. Fortunately for Mac users, however, not only does the cracking require a relatively expensive piece of software, but it also requires that certain conditions be in place for the software to be able to extract the FileVault keys. The Mac must be powered on and logged in; in other words, the FileVault keys must be in memory for Passware Kit Forensic to extract them. Passware can't extract encryption keys on static data, nor can it determine what the keys are before they've been requested as part of the log-in process. That means that as long as you turn off automatic login, you should be safe. To turn off automatic login on your FileVault 2-encrypted Mac, go to System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Options and make sure that "Off" is selected from the drop-down. The other tip to keep you safe? Turn off your laptop while traveling so that the Passware software cannot be used to hack into it. There's one other good piece of news; hackers need to get to the contents of memory through a working FireWire or Thunderbolt port, so the Passware process does not work via remote access. Likewise, those older MacBook Airs that only have USB ports are safe from this method -- commenter Thomas Brand on the Brooks Review notes that "Thunderbolt and FireWire access data directly from the system bus allowing the exploit. USB goes through the CPU." Yes, FileVault 2 encryption is vulnerable. But with a few easy, common-sense steps, mobile Mac users can keep their data safe anyway.
TUAW TV Live at 5 PM ET: The best of Macworld | iWorld 2012
Last week at this time, I was preparing for a quick round of interviews at Macworld | iWorld 2012. Now the show is over, and all that is left are the memories and the ringing in my ears caused by the drum circle that closed this year's event. Actually, I was gone by the time the cacophonous banging began, so maybe the ringing was from the TUAW Meetup... On today's TUAW TV Live, I'll talk about some of the high points of Macworld | iWorld 2012, why I think the event has reached a turning point and is heading back to full health, and discuss or demonstrate some of the top products from the show. As usual, I'll be starting the show at 5 PM EDT (2 PM PDT / 10 PM BST) sharp, and we'll take a few minutes to chat before the demos start. To join in on the chat and watch the live streaming video, drop by TUAW about five minutes before the start time to get your instructions on how to participate. If you're unable to join us for the show, remember that you can always subscribe to the video podcast and watch the show at your leisure in iTunes or any other favorite podcatching app. The past shows are also available on the TUAW YouTube channel. The chat is now available as well on IRC: join us on server chat1.ustream.tv, chat room #tuaw-tv.
Pokertini from Smappsoft on display at Macworld | iWorld 2012
Smappsoft sought me out a few times at Macworld | iWorld this year, so I was glad to see what they've been up to. Last I saw the company, they were working on a puzzle game called Look Again, and since then they've released a few other titles, including Chinese 13 Card Poker and a version of Look Again for children called Look Again, Jr. That app trades animals for the random patterns of the first title, and the devs are finding out that it's getting "a little traction in the special needs market" at schools, as teachers tell them that kids with communication issues can easily understand the game and how to win it. Smappsoft's latest game, an as-yet-unreleased app is called Pokertini, is more for adults with the tagline, "video poker with a twist." Yes, it's a very colorful video poker game. The guys behind Smappsoft have also released an app called Hold 'Em Helper, so it's clear they're fans of card gambling. Pokertini seems like fun. It is a video poker game (which means you get a hand of cards and then can hold or discard once, trying to make the best hand you can) with three hands, and the basic idea is that you place one bet that can be split across three hands. You can change up your bet after the first cards have arrived, so if you think you'll be luckier on the top hand than the bottom one, you can move coins up there (across the touchscreen) in the hopes that you'll score big. Scoring is pretty much the same as Vegas odds, so it's even money for Jacks or higher, and then more payouts on up the scale. The twist is that you can buy "twists" with your money that will influence the cards that arrive. For example, you can buy a twist that blocks low or high cards, or one that shakes up all of the hands. Every few hands you'll get a bonus round, where you're given a matrix of 3 by 5 cards, and just asked to make the best hands with them that you can in the time allotted. All of that was still under development, I was told. The team isn't quite sure how the bonus round will appear, and they're still considering how to make a compelling part of the game. There are also badges and achievements to earn. The game uses a freemium model. There are in-app purchases for more coins and money. Smappsoft says you'll never completely run out of money, though. If you do, the game will always grant you a little more to play with. If the team can balance out the twists and even out the bonus round, it should be a fun take on video poker, and if you already enjoy that pasttime, you'll probably love it. Smappsoft says Pokertini should be out later this year, so we'll keep an eye out for it.
SRS takes the iWow universal at Macworld | iWorld 2012
SRS Labs hosted a booth at Macworld | iWorld 2012 last week for two main reasons. First, the company wanted to show off the iPad version of MyTunes, its music player app that incorporates the company's patented sound enhancement algorithm. Second, it wanted to introduce an update to the iWow hardware itself, called the iWowU, that allows listeners to plug in to any source at all, from anywhere, straight through the headphone port. MyTunes has been out on iPhone for a while, but SRS showed me the iPad version, which is pretty slick as an "outside of iTunes" music player. Not only can you play all of the audio in your iTunes library, you can use SRS' iWow processing on it. MyTunes has a few different equalizers to play around with, including a 10-band, a 3-band, and a series of music genre settings. There are also a few transition options, an option to raise or lower a recording's speed without changing the pitch (handy for listening to lots of podcasts as quickly as you can), and a "TruVolume" setting which keeps all of the music in your library at the same volume. The SRS rep said the company's biggest issue with the app is that because of Apple's API limits, they can't apply the iWow processing to anything but the music in your iTunes library. Unfortunately that means MyTunes won't improve the sound coming out of streaming services like Pandora or Slacker. But the app seems like a solid alternative to iTunes, with the added bonus of all of SRS' technology. It should be available in about two weeks for free, with all features unlocked as a US$4.99 purchase. The new iWowU is a little unit that plugs into the headphone adapter on your iDevice -- or any headphone adapter anywhere, as it will also work on a PC, Mac, or any music player with a headphone plug. Your headphones plug into the other end (the iPhone's white mic cord will work), and the iWow processing is sent along through the cable. Older models had to use the iPhone and iPod touch's dock connector to power the iWow unit, but the iWowU actually charges up with a microUSB cable, so it'll process the music wherever you want for about 5-6 hours before needing charging again. SRS didn't have a price for the unit yet, but they said it'll be "similar to the current iWow," which is available for $59.99. The smaller size is nice, and the adapter for just a common headphone jack should mean listeners will have the chance to hear the iWow processing in all kinds of new places. The iWowU is due out later this year.
Liv Games releases Monster Wars on iOS at Macworld | iWorld 2012
I first met Liv Games' Orian Livnat at last year's Macworld, where he showed me a wild game called Legendary Wars that mashed up a number of different genres and ideas in a mix created by Livnat and his family and friends. At the time I thought the game was a really interesting idea, but even I didn't expect the kind of success Liv Games has seen. A year later, the company had multiple booths in the mobile app showcase section at Macworld | iWorld 2012. Even while also running the show during the day, the team was hard at work on releasing the followup to Legendary Wars, Monster Wars. That game is out now, and as you might imagine from the title, it follows the other side of the story, that of the monsters from the original game. Just like Legendary Wars, the graphics are colorful and the animations are very well done. Livnat and his crew have really blown what was already a very broad idea out even further, adding more unit types, more abilities, more game modes to play around with, and lots more upgrades and add-ons to earn throughout the longer campaign. Fans will really love spotting all of the updates here; there are lots more "pets" running around during batle, for one thing, which Livnat says players really enjoyed in the first game. The option to actually control creatures like trolls, liches, and undead knights is intriging as well. Fans of the first game should definitely pick up Monster Wars, and at the launch price of just 99 cents, this much content is hard for anyone to turn down. While Monster Wars is only Liv Games' second title, Livnat himself has quite a few projects underway, both as partnerships with other companies and as projects he's working on with friends. It sounds like he and his team are pretty run off their feet (he happily showed me pictures of the crew working late during Macworld to submit Monster Wars to the App Store), but he also says he's not interested in giving up the company to an acquisition. Legendary Wars did bring offers, says Livnat, but for now, it sounds like he's more interested in making games that people are really enjoying. Monster Wars has only been on the App Store for a little while, and already the reviews are filling up with lots of satisfied players. Liv Games seems to be doing quite well on all of its development so far, and it'll be interesting to see what Livnat and his burgeoning studio comes up with next.
Macworld | iWorld attendance steady in 2012; many newbies in the crowd
Attendance at this year's Macworld | iWorld event was approximately the same as last year's Macworld Expo -- about 25,000 people -- according to IDG World Expo, the group that organizes the "ultimate fan event." A wrap-up news release from IDG World Expo noted that about 40 percent of the attendees at this year's event were first-time visitors, which may translate to growth in attendance for next year's event scheduled for January 31 - February 2, 2013. Conference attendance was up a whopping 145 percent over last year, thanks in part to the $75 iFan Pass that made its debut in 2012. In the past, expo tickets were relatively inexpensive, but the cost of going to the conference sessions was prohibitively high. The iFan pass gave show-goers unlimited access to the educational sessions, show floor, music performances, and film screenings that made up this year's event. IDG World Expo has posted a gallery of photos from Macworld | iWorld as well as a video (see below) of Friday's happenings at Moscone West. Both are worth checking out for a taste of this year's event.
Nomad brushes with wide strokes at Macworld | iWorld 2012
Don Lee, CEO of Nomad Brush, was kind enough to meet with us for a few minutes on the floor of Macworld | iWorld 2012 last week to chat about his creation, which is one of the nicer brushes available for virtual painting on Apple's devices. Nomad's got a few different makes and models for various uses, but Lee says his goal for them is all the same: To provide a "good bridge between analog and digital painting." The brushes all do that -- they're solid brushes that respond well to the iPad's screen. But what they don't do is what all brushes and styluses can't yet do, and that's invoke pressure sensitive information onto Apple's glass screen. Lee says that it's actually a choice on Apple's part. He says that the software can determine the size of a touch on the screen -- in other words, if your finger touches it only slightly, that's a smaller screen space than if your finger (or a capacitive brush) is completely pressed up against the glass. But Apple doesn't allow developers to take advantage of that information with their apps. "If they were to let that open," says Lee, he'd obviously be able to sell more useful brushes, but until then, brushes are basically finger substitutes, not the full tools they could be. Now developers, being developers, have come up with lots of little tricks to get around this lack of pressure information. The app Zen Brush, which Lee says makes a nice example for his brushes, actually uses the speed of your finger swipe (along with "projected" virtual ink on the screen) to make a more realistic representation of how the brush would interact with an actual page. Nomad doesn't have its own app, but Lee says the company "would love to talk to some developers" about possibly making an app built to work with its brushes. In the meantime, of course, they work just fine with almost any drawing app. As for the brushes themselves, Lee says the biggest difference between them is basically just the size of the tips -- some are wider and better used at painting bigger strokes, and some are better for closeup work (only in the feeling, of course -- again, the size of the brush's contact on iOS' surface doesn't really matter, and all of the various brush settings have to be worked on in the actual software). But one thing Nomad is thinking about doing that customers have asked about is creating brushes with interchangeable tips, so that users can customize their handles with whatever brush they'd like to use. There are a few different choices in terms of brush styli for the iPad and iPhone, but Nomad seems like a good option, and it was interesting to talk to Lee, who's actually an architect by trade. All of Nomad's brushes are available on its website now.
Readdle previews Remarks iPad app at Macworld iWorld 2012
During Macworld | iWorld 2012 last week, I had the opportunity to meet with Denys Zhadanov of Readdle. If you're not familiar with Readdle's products, you might be new to the iOS world. The company has been around for four years and has sold over 3.5 million iOS apps, most of them used for reading and annotating PDF files. The company's newest entry into this market should be hitting the App Store any day now. Called Remarks, the app will sell for US$4.99 and is used to open, edit, and then save and distribute PDF files. My favorite part of the demonstration was when Denys opened a magazine file, tapped several pages, and created a new PDF file with annotations within seconds. Remarks has some unique navigation tools for precisely locating text or handwritten annotations, and it can save in either regular (layered) or flattened PDF formats. A short video showing off the impressive feature set of Remarks is embedded below.
Foursaken Media's four brothers take on the App Store
Foursaken Media is one of the most interesting companies I got to meet at last week's Macworld | iWorld 2012. It's made up of four real-life brothers who come from different backgrounds (one of them was a math teacher, and with their Dad a former band director and Mom a CS major turned nurse, they all have various affinities for art and technology), and have decided to release apps on the wild world of the App Store. The company has released a few games already, including the popular Bug Heroes, and the brothers showed me two more titles, one just released and one upcoming. Mad Chef is out on the App Store now -- it's a very colorful little arcade game that has you tossing knives at food ordered by customers as they appear. The graphics are fairly goofy, but they're a nice fit for the action anyway, as you can do things like accidentally hit customers (making them walk away) and earn money and powerups at various restaurants, from a greasy spoon diner all the way up to a high-end steakhouse. The other title the brothers showed off at Macworld was called Sky Gnomes -- it's a game they're still working on that features little gnomes falling on a snowball through the sky, which the player needs to guide around obstacles and into powerups and bonuses. The game looks like fun, and Foursaken is even planning some interesting multiplayer elements -- they're aiming to use ghosting to provide asynchronous gameplay, so your friends could record a run through one of the game's courses, and then you'd see them on your screen as you played, even though they aren't running at the same time. There will also be elimination-style courses, and as you race, you'll be able to wear up to three trinkets at a time to boost your stats and abilities. Sky Gnomes seems like a lot of fun -- the brothers haven't settled on whether it will be available for cheap or free (with of course in-app purchases available), but it should be available on the App Store soon. Foursaken's brothers seem like an interesting crew, and their games over the past few years have shown a lot of progression. We'll keep an eye out for Sky Gnomes and let you know when it hits the App Store.
Epson shows off the MegaPlex Digital Dock Projector at Macworld | iWorld 2012
Last week at Macworld | iWorld 2012, the imaging company Epson had set up a large area on the second floor to show off its latest product, the MegaPlex Digital Dock Projector. Epson makes a number of imaging products, including printers and projectors, but this is its first project driven by an iOS device. It's a pretty standard portable projector (in fact, I'd argue that the image and speaker quality on the projector are a little below standard, unfortunately), but the kicker here is that there's an iOS dock connector on the back, so you can plug in your iPad or iPhone, and any app that allows you to send video out can be shown off on the screen. There are two versions of the project for sale, priced at US$799 or $699, respectively. The difference is in the display. The higher-priced version will output 720p video at 2800 lumens, and the less expensive model does 540p video at 2200 lumens. There is a panel of standard video inputs on the side, including RCA, s-video, VGA, and HDMI, so you can plug just about anything else into the projector if you happen to not be using the dock. But there's also a handle on the unit, so it's a (mostly) portable way to show movies or presentations directly from an iOS device. It does that well, despite a tradeoff for image quality. The projector itself doesn't have any audio out to hook up to an external speaker, and while you could just use the iOS device's audio jack, that solution seems less than elegant. Still, it was kind of impressive to see the iPad's output up there on the big screen though Epson's box. If you've been looking into low cost projector solutions, and wouldn't mind have the option to get video right off of your iDevice, the MegaPlex might be what you're looking for.
Avatron soldiers on with Air Sharing after removing Air Dictate
Avatron's Elliot Chase just shrugs when asked about Air Dictate, an app his company had to remove from the App Store after Apple discovered it made use of Siri that they didn't approve of. "There's no good news," he said while talking to us at Macworld | iWorld 2012. The main issue is over Air Dictate's interface. Instead of using the standard, tiny Siri button on the native keyboard, Avatron hid the keyboard and used its own button. Apple would rather it used the standard UI, however unfitting. "If we make some changes, they might put us back," says Chase. But outside of that issue, Avatron is continuing to update its popular Air Sharing and Air Display apps. In fact, the gang was showing off Air Sharing's beautiful new PDF viewer in San Francisco last week. It features an iBooks-style page flip and a scrubber for quickly scanning a document's pages. Chase said that many users are reading PDFs with the app, and his company saw an opportunity to create a better PDF viewer. The next update, which should be out soon, will add Egnyte to the list of cloud services that Air Sharing is compatible with. Avatron is also working on Air Display updates. An Android version is in development, as is a Mac update that will allow it to work on older versions of Mac OS X . The current version requires the latest version of the Mac OS, but Avatron will release a downloadable version on its website that will work with previous versions, so you can share a display screen with your iPad from nearly any OS X build. There's a beta available now, but the software should be finalized in the next month or so. Air Dictate was certainly a setback (Avatron even had the software's picture marked out on its booth at Macworld as "not available"), but it sounds like Avatron is keeping busy nevertheless.
Macworld|iWorld's South Park talk
On the first day of Macworld|iWorld, one of the talks on the main stage was by three people who help bring the animated series South Park to life each week: David Lenna (CTO), Ryan Quincy (Animation Producer), and Eric Stough (Animation Director and Producer). It was an interview-format talk, with the questions being asked by Andy Ihnatko. There were clips from the series as well as from last fall's documentary Six Days To Air. The unique style of South Park's animation comes from its humble beginnings. When co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker first started shooting animation, they were actually using construction paper cutouts. Time constraints make that virtually impossible now, so the series is animated in Maya on Macs (keeping to that app much as possible so they don't have to switch between tools), using high-powered 3D rendering software to make everything look like it was shot with cut-up construction paper.It was interesting to get some insight into the process of putting a show together in six days. Highlights of the things they discussed: * Very little animation gets cut: They usually have about 24 minutes of animation for a 22-minute show. * Blizzard got them actual environments and files to drop in when they shot the episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft," which was largely set within the game's environment. * Their network is about 45 XServes and a stack of Mac Pros, which they pointed out, are getting a bit long in the tooth. * When a suggestion is made for a new tool or workflow, the hard rule is that it cannot take any longer than things take now. Even today the schedule is so tight, if it takes an extra 10 seconds on every machine, the whole schedule is off. * They have a team of people working right now on converting episodes to HD from SD. One of the episodes that will likely always live in SD is the aforementioned "Make Love, Not Warcraft." * Initially they thought they might be able to get an episode out in two weeks, but have managed to tighten the process down to less than one. There were also clips shown from the episode "Major Boobage." There was video of what the initial storyboards look like shown side by side with the finished product, and some video of live action that was filmed as reference and animated over. It wasn't a long enough talk for them to get into the nuts and bolts of workflow, but it was very nice to know that part of how an entire show can go from a funny idea to a finished product in less than a week is thanks to Macs.
Talkcast tonight, 10pm ET/7pm PT: Post Macworld-iWorld Edition!
Here we are again, another Sunday. What remains of our TUAW crew after covering Macworld | iWorld 2012 (and more importantly, all of the ancillary events associated with MWiW) will be around tonight to chat about the show and whatever else we can come up with to fill out the hour. What's left of Kelly's voice will be hosting this evening, so you might have to listen closely. What's left of Paul Kent has said he will make every attempt to join us, but if he can't make it this week he said he'd join us next week. Your calls and questions help us make the show the best it can be, otherwise I'm just talking to myself! To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (yay for free cellphone weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8. If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Gizmo, X-Lite, or Blink SIP clients; basic instructions are here. Talk to you tonight!
Sanho previews CloudFTP at Macworld | iWorld 2012
Sanho had its Kickstarter-funded CloudFTP at Macworld | iWorld 2012 this year, and the project has generated a lot of excitement. Sanho's Daniel Chin originally sought $100,000 in funding through Kickstarter, but wound up with more than 2,700 backers and more than $262,000 by the time the pledge drive ended three weeks ago. CloudFTP is an adapter that turns any USB storage device into a wireless file server. It can share files with any WiFi-enabled device and will back up data to cloud storage on the Internet. It creates its own ad-hoc wireless network to share data, and it can be accessed from a web app, iOS app (there's one for Android as well) or via FTP. CloudFTP is expected to ship in early February to Kickstarter participants and will cost $99.95 retail. Check out the video below to discover CloudFTP can do.
MacPractice introduces an iPad app to go with its healthcare software
We've mentioned MacPractice a couple of times before -- professional software for the Mac designed to be used by doctors and dentists to do things like track patients' appointments, keep and share health information, and do all the things a small-to-mid-sized health clinic needs to do. We were able to meet up with MacPractice's CEO Mark Hollis this week at Macworld | iWorld 2012 here in San Francisco, and he chatted with us about the company's latest venture: A new iPad app called Clipboard that's designed to work directly with the MacPractice software to help doctors get and log their information remotely. Hollis says developing for the iPad has been an interesting task for his company. Traditionally, he says, most doctors want bigger screens on their desktop computers. The MacPractice software is full of information (about scheduling, patients, charts, and so on), and so the desktop software has been designed to show as much of that information as possible. Most desktops it's used on also have bigger screens, which means anyone using the software can easily view or find whatever they need, clearly and quickly. The iPad, however, while more portable, is a relatively small screen. So while many, many doctors, says Hollis, have asked for access to MacPractice through the iPad, the company has has to think carefully about how to provide the best experience. There is already an interface app that allows doctors to access information, and there are a few other apps for various purposes and specialties. But the Clipboard app is designed to take on the much-requested feature of allowing patients to enter and approve their information, so it was a tough one for Hollis and his company to get right. Another obstacle to implementing iPad apps as quickly as doctors can use them is simply all of the various security and privacy protocols that MacPractice needs to follow. Patient and medical information is obviously very sensitive, and there are a whole host of guidelines and standards, required by law in many cases, that MacPractice needs to follow to make sure its apps are certified and can be used by medical professionals. Hollis says that most of the issue there is that MacPractice has to build in those standards by itself -- Apple doesn't have an official part of the iOS API, for example, designed to deal with medical certification. "It would be helpful," says Hollis, if Apple did provide some official code to help deal with those issues. But for now, MacPractice has to make sure its own apps are valid, and that takes time and effort, obviously. Finally, Hollis mentioned Parallels Mobile as another option. Parallels is a completely separate virtualization app from a completely separate company, but the iPad version of the software, which lets you control and interact with apps remotely running on a separate desktop computer, allows doctors to really get into everything MacPractice can do for them, even when they're not at the desk. If you do want to run the app locally on your iPad, however, the Clipboard app will be available for $9.99. It's currently in beta, and will be available for MacPractice users soon. Obviously, if you download the app itself, it won't do much without the MacPractice system set up around it, but Hollis does say that it will at least have some sample data included, so anyone who downloads the app can at least see what the functionality is like. MacPractice has been an excellent tool for doctors and physicians for a long time, and the company is making a big drive to make sure that tool is available on iOS as well.
Macworld | iWorld Best of Show liveblog
I'm live at the Best of Show awards, where Macworld has chosen the best products from the show (hence the name). Sorry about the lack of images, you'd basically see washed out photos of a projected image. Be sure to check out the links to each product. 3:07 Just now getting started! Up first, Boinx with iStopMotion. Florian from Boinx is doing a demo of iStopMotion. As we said back in December, it is pretty nice. 3:12 A beautiful little paper cutout animation from a kid who used iStopMotion -- really cool stuff. 3:15 PDFpen for iPad is up next from Smile. Really interesting to see how something as simple as a PDF tool (and there are several on the store) can be fresh and awesome. PDFpen is basically Adobe Acrobat Pro for your iPad. But much, much easier to use. I just saw a signature from Photos applied to a tax document -- with transparency so it didn't block the field below! You can easily drag and drop text boxes and more. Oh, and iCloud storage. How cool is that? There's a Mac version as well, but PDFpen looks fantastic either way. 3:20 TourWrist is up next. They call it "remote reality" -- sort of like QuickTime VR for your iPad. The authoring side of the app is really pretty nice. It uses a simple line to help you line up your images for a full panorama, better than a gyro-based solution that automatically lines them up. 3:25 The other winners: DevMicro makes a small microphone in a cone shape that captures 6 channels of audio at once! FileThis has a service called Fetch that will gather online docs from various financial accounts and puts them together for you. Blue Microphones won for their Spark Digital microphone. It's a digital version of their analog mic of the same name. i4software has a video studio app for your iPhone. It can handle multiple cameras, which is pretty amazing. Global Delight has a product called Game Your Video, which adds effects to video (for iOS). Ryz Media has blinQ, a remote control that uses your iPhone and adds some social sharing. Not sure how this won -- there are a bunch of apps (with hardware dongles) that do this. I'll give it a whirl and see what makes it special. Adonit's Jot Touch won because it is the stylus that allows you to add pressure sensitivity to your iOS device. It's a cool product that will make you miss your Wacom tablet. Lantronix won for the xPrintServer, a product that connects to your network and makes printers available for AirPrint. 3:35 And we're done! Early! Congratulations to the winners. Check out our Macworld hub for more coverage.
