# Apple new product rumours and general news



## elbows (Jan 3, 2009)

Apple are speaking at Macworld for the last time on Tuesday (I think) so there are currently plenty of rumors about what new products will be announced.

Rumors that sound quite likely are for iMac and mac mini refreshes, probably using the nvidia chipset/graphics that was used in the latest apple notebooks. Its also been suggested that Snow Leopard will come out earlier than anticipated (eg by March or April rather than June or later).

There is talk of an 'iphone nano' which may sound far fetched, but the size of the current iphone probably puts some people off so it may be true.

There is some suggestion that a refresh for the 17" Macbook Pro might include a quad processor. And the Mac Pro might get an update as its been about a year since the current one came out.

A cheaper macbook might also be on offer, although there is considerable doubt as to whether it would be a netbook type spec, size & price.

There is also a little chatter about a larger multitouch type device, with a screen size around 7 to 9 inches, though the rumor about that suggests it would come out towards the end of 2009, not the start.


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## snadge (Jan 3, 2009)

> And the Mac Pro might get an update as its been about a year since the current one came out.



13" screen please.


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## elbows (Jan 3, 2009)

The Mac Pro is a tower. The Macbook Pro's got updated a few months ago, if you are hoping for one of those with a 13" screen then I dont think there is much chance. There is some chance that people who want a Mac notebook with a screen smaller than 13" might be in luck, but Im not convinced.


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## Pie 1 (Jan 3, 2009)

I'm hoping for a Mac Pro update as I'm itching to order my new one  - been holding off for a month or so now.


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## ajk (Jan 3, 2009)




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## snadge (Jan 3, 2009)

Pie 1 said:


> I'm hoping for a Mac Pro update as I'm itching to order my new one  - been holding off for a month or so now.



What do you think the new ones one update?

Looking at mac pros they seem to be extremely reasonable priced for what power they can deliver, I have been looking at them myself, they seem to have enough capabilities for any task you could chuck at them.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 3, 2009)

I can see the Mac Pro refreshes. Seriously doubt the tablet/big touch and reckon the big wow will be the iPhone nano. There hat well in and truly in the predictions ring!


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## paolo (Jan 3, 2009)

Well, in the spirit of a sweepstake, and just for fun, I'll have to take the "no iPhone nano" ticket then


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## editor (Jan 3, 2009)

I just can't see how a Nano iPhone would work as the screen would be horribly small for a virtual keyboard.
Mind you, a cheap iPhone-esque handset with all the style of Apple would blow a rocket through the US market, where real stinky low-end phones still sell by the bucketload (see: Motorola's entire range).


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 3, 2009)

editor said:


> I just can't see how a Nano iPhone would work as the screen would be horribly small for a virtual keyboard.
> Mind you, a cheap iPhone-esque handset with all the style of Apple would blow a rocket through the US market, where real stinky low-end phones still sell by the bucketload (see: Motorola's entire range).



Depends on how small it is and as I said on the other thread there's always landscape mode which gives you a bit more space...


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## paolo (Jan 3, 2009)

It wouldn't be much cheaper to make, so they'd have swallow a chunk of margin to make it significantly cheaper. And, as you say, it'll get fiddly in a small package. And you can't really do away with qwerty input, otherwise the 'full Internet' thing goes out of the window.


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## paolo (Jan 3, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Depends on how small it is and as I said on the other thread there's always landscape mode which gives you a bit more space...



True, although you lose looads of usable screen in landscape typing. I never use it.


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## Pie 1 (Jan 3, 2009)

snadge said:


> What do you think the new ones one update?
> 
> Looking at mac pros they seem to be extremely reasonable priced for what power they can deliver, I have been looking at them myself, they seem to have enough capabilities for any task you could chuck at them.



Oh, I know & I do chuck a lot at them (professional imaging)
 - I just thought it worth holding on for a few weeks for a possible little boost in standard ram/cpu speed that they might throw at it for the same price.


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## snadge (Jan 3, 2009)

Pie 1 said:


> Oh, I know & I do chuck a lot at them (professional imaging)
> - I just thought it worth holding on for a few weeks for a possible little boost in standard ram/cpu speed that they might throw at it for the same price.



I don't think they can top what they offer ATM,  the complete package is cheaper than a home built system or a dell model and there is no way that the hardware could be classed as "sluggish".

The only thing I would love to see in a mac pro is compatibility with high end graphics cards, ATM apple depend on manufacturers "enabling" graphics cards to work with OSX.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 4, 2009)

Oh yeah they'll also announce the iPhone HD with 64gigs of storage.


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## onemonkey (Jan 4, 2009)

maybe they'll also announce the real reason why steve isn't doing the keynote


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## editor (Jan 4, 2009)

onemonkey said:


> maybe they'll also announce the real reason why steve isn't doing the keynote


There's been a lot of rumours about his supposedly failing health recently.


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## Pie 1 (Jan 4, 2009)

snadge said:


> I don't think they can top what they offer ATM,  the complete package is cheaper than a home built system or a dell model and there is no way that the hardware could be classed as "sluggish".
> 
> The only thing I would love to see in a mac pro is compatibility with high end graphics cards, ATM apple depend on manufacturers "enabling" graphics cards to work with OSX.



I'm not questioning the current power at all, but it's still worth waiting until the end of the week to place a £3k order innit!


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## snadge (Jan 4, 2009)

Pie 1 said:


> I'm not questioning the current power at all, but it's still worth waiting until the end of the week to place a £3k order innit!



very true.


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## editor (Jan 4, 2009)

The latest rumours are for 'unibody' 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pros. And poss a 17" too.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheBoyGeniusReport/~3/502820414/

No doubt they'll look great, but if they come with slim, extended-life, _non-removable_ batteries, that really would suck that fat one.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/04/17-inch-unibody-macbook-pro-with-non-removable-battery-rumored-f/


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 4, 2009)

A non-changeable battery on an MBP would indeed be utter rubbish (unless, you know, it lasted for 12 hours or something, which it isn't going to) but really none of the rumours this year seem at all sure of themselves. I'm just expecting a couple of processor updates to existing products and that's it.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2009)

editor said:


> The latest rumours are for 'unibody' 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pros. And poss a 17" too.



Not quite, you read it slightly wrong, there are already unibody 15" macbook pro's, and 13" macbooks, thats what was announced last time. But the 17" body/keyboard/trackpad wasnt refreshed at that time, so its due for an update to the new form at some point. Not sure about the battery rumour.


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 4, 2009)

There have been a few uninspiring updates/new products recently, so I reckon they are due something pretty good - but I have a sinking feeling it will be another raft of oh so slightly disappointing things.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 4, 2009)

A [possible fake] photo has surfaced of the iPhone nano too...


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 4, 2009)

There have been a few because of the cases, haven't there? I can't see it working, myself. I would have thought those buying iphones would want the bells and whistles. I certainly would't get a nano version - what's the point? Well, that's just my opinion, I'm sure there'll be the usual crew who have to have it because it's the Next.Big.Thing. I'll likely be getting a normal 8GB iphone once Macworld is over and I know for sure no updated model (full-sized) has been announced.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 4, 2009)

I'm pretty sure this iPhone Nano stuff is junk. I did like the iPhone Shuffle idea though


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 4, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I'm pretty sure this iPhone Nano stuff is junk. I did like the iPhone Shuffle idea though



Heh yeah that was spot on.


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## Sunray (Jan 5, 2009)

A new Apple phone isn't going to happen. 

Bluesky: A small touch screen that is for contacts/number pad and normal T9 style input with a nice camera and video?  Make it look nice, mega simple to use and low priced and they might be onto a winner.


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## pk (Jan 5, 2009)

Hope it's nothing too exciting - me and the missus get brand new iPhones tomorrow!

Don't know what they're up to with the Macbook Pro machines, I was lucky to get one of the last batch of Firewire 800 machines.
If they seriously think the Express 3/4 port is a satisfactory replacement for at least two built in FW interfaces then they've definitely dropped the ball.

On another note though... I got round to giving my old 2003 Powerbook a thorough reinstall and upgrade the other day and it's still unbelievably swift and responsive, only just a little slower to do basic renders than my new one.

Six years of daily use, often constantly processing torrents and shit overnight too, and it's as good as new.

I thought it was fucked, really slow and shit, but a little TLC and an archive/install and it leaped into action as soon as I hit the power button.

How many high end PC laptops from 2003 are worth a shit now, I wonder?

Goes to show - you get what you pay for. 
Those things aren't just about pretty design, they work and they're built like tanks.


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## BlockUp (Jan 5, 2009)

snadge said:


> The only thing I would love to see in a mac pro is compatibility with high end graphics cards, ATM apple depend on manufacturers "enabling" graphics cards to work with OSX.




I read that was something on the cards for the mac pro, also Blue Ray on the dvd player on all new macs was another hope for some people...


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## Pie 1 (Jan 5, 2009)

editor said:


> if they come with slim, extended-life, _non-removable_ batteries, that really would suck that fat one.



And again, really, really fucking piss off their core pro users.
Eg: Going on professional photo location shoots without back up batteries? Fucks sake.


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## Pie 1 (Jan 5, 2009)

pk said:


> Those things aren't just about pretty design, they work and they're built like tanks.



Aye. My MBP's had a trip across Terminal 4, and a 110cm fall - yanked by still attached FW to camera  - onto a concrete floor on it's superdrive corner & it's still right as rain.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 5, 2009)

pk said:


> Hope it's nothing too exciting - me and the missus get brand new iPhones tomorrow!



Well there have been a few rumours suggesting an iPhone hd refresh...the thing about the 17 inch Macbook pro is it lacks the wow factor Apple like, really can't see a touch style tablet but can see a iPhone nano coming...


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## editor (Jan 5, 2009)

pk said:


> How many high end PC laptops from 2003 are worth a shit now, I wonder?


Tens of millions, I expect.





pk said:


> Hope it's nothing too exciting - me and the missus get brand new iPhones tomorrow!


Hang on:





pk said:


> But the iPHONE is little more than a toy to me. Good for girls though, makes a handy compact mirror to check makeup or from which to sniff Bolivian marching powder.


LOL!


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## exleper (Jan 5, 2009)

I know it's not very exciting, but I'm interested to see what, if any, kind of changes will be made to the new Mac Mini.  I'm a Mini user and have been waiting patiently for an upgrade for ages now - the Mini hasn't received a update for eighteen months, and many people thought it was dropped from the product line.  

Rumor has it that it will be black and aluminium, although going by this mock up I certainly hope not:


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## editor (Jan 5, 2009)

exleper said:


> I know it's not very exciting, but I'm interested to see what, if any, kind of changes will be made to the new Mac Mini.


One rumour is that it'll get a dual monitor output.


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## editor (Jan 5, 2009)

Here's a moderately amusing distraction:

'Where your Apple tax goes..."


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## boskysquelch (Jan 5, 2009)

editor said:


> One rumour is that it'll get a dual monitor output.



I've also seen  physically "thinner" mockups.

no mention of the iWatch?


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## sim667 (Jan 5, 2009)

I need to give my 2002 powerbook a good re-install..... Im just too lazy lol.


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## pk (Jan 5, 2009)

editor said:


> Hang on:LOL!



LOL yourself!!

That iPhone comment I made was from 11-06-2008... seven months ago!

Come on Editor, that's pretty desperate, even for you!

Since waaaay back then, my N95 8GB has been fucking up, crashing and the earpiece not working unless I push the slot out, and the iPhone has turned into a reliable 3G machine when it wasn't before.

I need a new phone and as a Mac user need something that will sync with my other gear. Get over it mate!


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## pk (Jan 5, 2009)

sim667 said:


> I need to give my 2002 powerbook a good re-install..... Im just too lazy lol.



Doesn't take long - back everything up first!!

Overwrite your drive with zeros (it's an option in the system disc version of Disk Utility) then reinstall the software that came with it, then upgrade to Tiger or Leopard (depending on what your model can handle).

Then enjoy a brand new machine!


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## editor (Jan 5, 2009)

pk said:


> That iPhone comment I made was from 11-06-2008... seven months ago!


So what major hardware changes have taken place on the iPhone in the past six months that has suddenly prevented it from being, "little more than a toy" and only "good for girls" to use as a "handy compact mirror to check their makeup" in?


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 5, 2009)

pk said:


> LOL yourself!!
> 
> That iPhone comment I made was from 11-06-2008... seven months ago!
> 
> ...



Tell me about it, how much searching must he had to have done to find it!?


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## editor (Jan 5, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Tell me about it, how much searching must he had to have done to find it!?


All of  20 seconds actually.

But thanks for your full o'fail attempt to stir things up. Always a fascinating, and truly valuable on-topic contribution to any thread.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 5, 2009)

LOL! It wasn't an attempt to stir it up (but well done for finding an angle to bitch from), it was just amusing that you had to go back 7 months to allege a disparity of opinion, no room for people to change their mind in your world I take it.


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## editor (Jan 5, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> LOL! It wasn't an attempt to stir it up (but well done for finding an angle to bitch from), it was just amusing that you had to go back 7 months to allege a disparity of opinion, no room for people to change their mind in your world I take it.


Not sure why you're shoving your oar in here, but I'd say it's notable when a poster who has really _gone to town_ to tell everyone how shit a product is - slagging it off as a "toy" and being only suitable for  "girls" - suddenly announces that he's just ordered two of them.


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## Pie 1 (Jan 5, 2009)

editor said:


> thanks for your full o'fail attempt to stir things up.



And digging up a quote from 7 months ago wasn't?

Riiiiiiiiiight.


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## editor (Jan 5, 2009)

Pie 1 said:


> And digging up a quote from 7 months ago wasn't?
> 
> Riiiiiiiiiight.


It was a perfectly normal response to his iPhone post considering how vehemently anti-iPhone he'd been only six months ago.

After all, it's not like there's been a less 'girly' or a less 'toy-like' version of the phone released since then.


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## spacemonkey (Jan 5, 2009)

editor said:


> There's been a lot of rumours about his supposedly failing health recently.



http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/05sjletter.html

Posted a couple of hours ago.


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## editor (Jan 5, 2009)

spacemonkey said:


> http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/05sjletter.html
> 
> Posted a couple of hours ago.



C Net is unimpressed: 





> OK, it's great to know that he's not facing a cancer recurrence, as some had speculated. Jobs is a tech icon and the industry would be much the poorer were he to retire from the scene.
> 
> But this latest PR stunt is going to raise new questions. Not about the exact nature of Jobs' ailment but about the parsimonious way Apple has communicated with the public about the health of its CEO.
> 
> ...




http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-10131001-60.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20


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## spacemonkey (Jan 5, 2009)

editor said:


> C Net is unimpressed:
> 
> 
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-10131001-60.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 5, 2009)

editor said:


> Not sure why you're shoving your oar in here, but I'd say it's notable when a poster who has really _gone to town_ to tell everyone how shit a product is - slagging it off as a "toy" and being only suitable for  "girls" - suddenly announces that he's just ordered two of them.



For you maybe but as I said I wouldn't hold it against a previous critic of the iPhone changing their mind.

A case in point for some time I wasn't very impressed with the centro, then changed my mind and bought one! I don't remember you feeling the need to scrutinse my posts for your big lolz...


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## Sunray (Jan 5, 2009)

editor said:


> C Net is unimpressed:
> 
> 
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-10131001-60.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20




What a load of irrelevance.  
Steve Jobs at the Helm = People buy Apple stuff if its good.
Steve Jobs not at the helm = People still buy Apple stuff if its good.

Of course Apple does have a history of totally losing it way without him, so share holders are much keener to have him there but there are probably enough people there now that can do his job just fine.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 5, 2009)

It's just marketing. the stubble, the blue jeans and black top...lose that and their 'one more thing' line looks a bit limp. Which probably explains the new strategy...


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## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> So what major hardware changes have taken place on the iPhone in the past six months that has suddenly prevented it from being, "little more than a toy" and only "good for girls" to use as a "handy compact mirror to check their makeup" in?



Erm, the fact that it's a 3G phone now, since you asked.

I dont recall the precise context of the comments I made seven months ago, but I'd stand by them in regards to the older non-3G phones. These newfangled ones are much more functional for me as I'm permanently on the 3G.
The battery life is better and I bought a solar powered leather case for it to top up the power charge anyway, which should give me 2 days at a time.

And it's a very nice bit of gadget too.

I don't buy shit, you should know that by now Ed. 

Oh and here's the link for the solar power case, only £27, bound to save that in charge costs...
http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/product/17272.htm

Who cares anyway?

I like to buy Mac products purely because it's one in the eye for this wanker, who invented nothing and stole everything...


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## Bob_the_lost (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> Oh and here's the link for the solar power case, only £27, bound to save that in charge costs...
> http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/product/17272.htm



Useful, but i hope that you have translucent pocket lining (and buttocks) as even if the sun does shine out of your arse it might have trouble getting to the phone.


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## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> The battery life is better and I bought a solar powered leather case for it to top up the power charge anyway, which should give me 2 days at a time.


LOL. That huge slab o'fail is going to be as useful as a chocolate fireguard in the UK.


> According to Mobile Fun, which kindly provided my sample, the case's battery should charge full in three hours under the sun. The supplied manual suggests it'll charge a flat iPhone in ten hours.
> 
> And the reality? Well, to test it, I left my case connected to a flat iPhone for five full days last week.
> 
> They were grey autumn days and the case was behind glass on a window sill -- you wouldn't leave it in the rain, would you? -- but I hoped it'd produce enough power to chat for a few minutes. Maybe half an hour's juice to rearrange my home screen icons. *Instead, it produced no electricity at all. Not even enough to turn the iPhone on*.


http://crave.cnet.co.uk/greentech/0,250000598,10001646,00.htm

 Shame you can't use a replaceable battery like every other phone, eh?


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## Lazy Llama (Jan 6, 2009)

As always, The Onion has the scoop on the new Apple product: The Macbook Wheel


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## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> LOL. That huge slab o'fail is going to be as useful as a chocolate fireguard in the UK.
> http://crave.cnet.co.uk/greentech/0,250000598,10001646,00.htm



Well, not really because it serves as a top up system, not as a sole power source. You can squeeze a further hour or two use out of it as compared with not using one. And you don't need to put it in the direct path of a Sudanese sun, a relatively bright day will suffice. 
A day like today would be perfect, for example.
I, unlike you, have researched this properly instead of frantically Googling for any detracting statements without ever having used one or seen one.



> Shame you can't use a replaceable battery like every other phone, eh?



You know, for someone who sets themselves up as a gadget reviewer, and indeed is occasionally paid to do so, you are awfully ignorant about the equipment that you claim to be the authority on.

The battery in the iPhone 3G is not soldered as it is in the original iPhone, which makes replacing the battery comparatively simple.


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## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> The battery in the iPhone 3G is not soldered as it is in the original iPhone, which makes replacing the battery comparatively simple.


Not on the go it's not.
Although I can't personally remember the last time I actually used the spare battery I have for my phone.


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## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> I, unlike you, have researched this properly instead of frantically Googling for any detracting statements without ever having used one or seen one.


That was the only review I could find and it's from a reputable source. What reviews have you seen please?

But if you think that lugging around a large flap stuck on your phone and having to keep it out of your pocket in the hope of catching a nano-slither of power from the winter sun is an elegant solution, you go right ahead. I hope no one nicks your phone while it's left out though.

Call me crazy, but I generally prefer to carry my phone in my pocket.


pk said:


> You know, for someone who sets themselves up as a gadget reviewer, and indeed is occasionally paid to do so, you are awfully ignorant about the equipment that you claim to be the authority on.
> 
> The battery in the iPhone 3G is not soldered as it is in the original iPhone, which makes replacing the battery comparatively simple.


You're joking right? You reckon you'll manage this 20-step process _on the train?_
http://www.rapidrepair.com/guides/iphone3g/iphone3grepairguide.html

Heck, you'll only need a small Phillips Screw Driver, a small Flathead or exacto razor, a safe Open Tool and a third party Repair Toolkit! What could be simpler!













And if you haven't fucked up your phone or lost some bits on the way, you can rest easy knowing that you've just kissed goodbye to your warranty too.

The iPhone has some truly great features but trying to defend or downplay  Apple's refusal to fit a user-replaceable battery is the sole preserve of deluded fanboys. It's a terrible omission.


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## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Not on the go it's not.
> Although I can't personally remember the last time I actually used the spare battery I have for my phone.



I've had no reason to use my spare battery on the Nokia either - which gives very similar battery life to the iPhone by the way - and this solar thing gives me a good charge when I'm between chargers.

I also often carry another solar kit for other devices, which can be used in addition to the solar case, so I'm not overly worried.

Rest assured, if I have trouble I'll be bitching about it here without question, but I'll be bitching objectively as an iPhone owner and daily user - not as an amateur reviewer who has only ever played with an iPhone once or twice and who actively seeks negative reviews to shore up his anti-Mac bias!


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> not as an amateur reviewer who has only ever played with an iPhone once or twice and who actively seeks negative reviews to shore up his anti-Mac bias!



Oh dear, that's not a comment destined to go down well...


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## exleper (Jan 6, 2009)

Do you think we could move away from the childish fanboy-vs-anti-fanboy bickering and get back on topic, perhaps?  or is that too much to ask...

Google have announced they will be launching a beta version of Picasa for Mac at the convention, which I think is good news.  I do like iPhoto but it can be infuriating at times, it has a very strange way of storing and categorising files.  Picasa is easily the best free photo album software so it'll be interesting to see how it stands up on Mac.

http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2009/01/picasas-macworld-debut.html

Also, there's talk of iLife '09 being partly, or entirely, web-based.  Which is...interesting.  Not sure what to make of this rumour, although if it means any improvement at all on the dreadful iMovie 08 then that can only be a good thing.  I'm still using iMovie 5 on my PowerPC Mac Mini and have been put off upgrading until something worth buying comes along, so I'm very hopeful for good news this afternoon.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/rumor_apples_imovie_to_recieve_significant_update_at_macworld

The Macworld fun kicks off at about 5pm this afternoon UK time and I will probably have half an eye on http://www.macrumorslive.com/ or similar to see "what occurin' ".


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## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

Oooooh Picasa! I'm interested now  It's definitely a better app than iphoto.
(isn't the linux version simply the windows one in a WINE wrapper? - Suspect this'll be the same...)


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## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> That was the only review I could find and it's from a reputable source. What reviews have you seen please?



Well, your Googling skills clearly need some honing:

http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/apple/solar-iphone-case-is-handy-and-useful.html

http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/blog/mobile-accessories/solar-powered-case-for-iphone-3g.htm




			
				Editor said:
			
		

> But if you think that lugging around a large flap stuck on your phone and having to keep it out of your pocket in the hope of catching a nano-slither of power from the winter sun is an elegant solution, you go right ahead. I hope no one nicks your phone while it's left out though.



I always, without fail, but a leather case for all my phones - my N95 had one, even my laptop has one, it keeps them scratch free and they're less likely to slip out of my pocket into the nearest puddle/toilet/cup of coffee.
So getting one with the solar panel built in was a no-brainer.
And since most of the use mine gets is whilst travelling (an average of 3 hours a day), it will be out of my pocket and facing the nearest window anyway.
As for it getting nicked - I'd relish some cunt trying, but anyone with a smartphone on the train runs the same risk.



> Call me crazy, but I generally prefer to carry my phone in my pocket.



Even when you're browsing Urban75? 
Fuck me, that's one clever phone - does it run on telepathy??



> You're joking right? You reckon you'll manage this 20-step process _on the train?_
> http://www.rapidrepair.com/guides/iphone3g/iphone3grepairguide.html
> 
> Heck, you'll only need a small Phillips Screw Driver, a small Flathead or exacto razor, a safe Open Tool and a third party Repair Toolkit! What could be simpler!
> ...



Well, I don't think I'll need to replace the battery, certainly not for some time. You know as well as I do that batteries lose charge potential after a year or so, in which case I get the thing serviced or just upgrade again for free to the latest model - my phone contract means I get whatever phone I want every 12 months, so it's only got to do me a year's service.

I don't see it being any more troublesome than my Nokia N95 was.

Time will tell. I'm not trying to defend or downplay user-replaceable batteries in the thin iMac, but in a phone, I don't see it being a huge deal just yet, and the solar kit means it'll have a trickle charge to top it up.

I'm pretty impressed with the performance I have been getting from my Freeloader solar device over the past 2 years or so, and as a result I reckon my money is wisely spent - all £50 quid of it, for both phone AND case!

I'm quietly confident, both in the phone and in the knowledge that I have first hand experience of both devices. 

It's a product that suits me, as both a Mac user and a commuter.

I'll let you know if anything disappoints.


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Oh dear, that's not a comment destined to go down well...



Truth hurts sometimes!


----------



## Pie 1 (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> Shame you can't use a replaceable battery like every other phone, eh?



Let me count the number of times I've needed a spare battery on a phone, ever.......... Never.
I mean seriously, even the most jet setting, keyboard hammering, 3G using, uber "road warrior" sleeps somewhere each night, where unless it's a jungle hut in Borneo, there's a plug socket.

It maybe inconvinient _ocassionally_ but it's not really the epic fail you keep banging on about either, is it? - y'know, like in the real world.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

pk;8559129][URL]http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/apple/solar-iphone-case-is-handy-and-useful.html[/URL][/quote]Oh yes. Total win:[quote]I received this case a few weeks back and to be honest said:


> Tom Keating[/URL] suggested I place the case under an indoor light for a few days to see what happens. *Sadly, nothing*.


 So the writer had to go to the _Cayman Islands_ to get it to work! Oh, my poor sides.





pk said:


> Well, your Googling skills clearly need some honing:
> http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/blog/mobile-accessories/solar-powered-case-for-iphone-3g.htm


And that's not even a proper review - just anonymous user comments. Great Googling!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 6, 2009)

God this is pathetic. I'm cleverer than you. No, I'm cleverer than you.

*yawn*

Anyway, yes, I've heard that iLife will be web-based too - which sounds very interesting. And I've never tried Picasa, having always had a Mac since I started getting into photos, so I'll be interested to have a little play


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

I'll say one thing that fucks me off already though - given the lack of ability to use iSync with my Nokia phones, and I've used only Nokia since... dunno, 1993 or thereabouts - I'm having to manually type in all my contacts from my old phone to the laptop, to load them into the iPhone.

Which is a fucker when you've got 1067 of the bastards to carefully type out.

I've got to "H" and I'm bored shitless.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> Truth hurts sometimes!


You're lying. 
I've posted up tons of praise about the iPhone but you're too much up your iArse to even  see it, so you try and try slag off my professional abilities instead. It's pathetic and underhand. Grow up.





Crispy said:


> Oooooh Picasa! I'm interested now  It's definitely a better app than iphoto.
> (isn't the linux version simply the windows one in a WINE wrapper? - Suspect this'll be the same...)


Picasa is excellent on XP although at times it tries to be a little too slick for its own good and it can all get a bit confusing.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> I'll say one thing that fucks me off already though - given the lack of ability to use iSync with my Nokia phones, and I've used only Nokia since... dunno, 1993 or thereabouts - I'm having to manually type in all my contacts from my old phone to the laptop, to load them into the iPhone.
> 
> Which is a fucker when you've got 1067 of the bastards to carefully type out.
> 
> I've got to "H" and I'm bored shitless.



Now that's going to piss me off. I'm not as popular as you though PK, so it won't take as long


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> I'll say one thing that fucks me off already though - given the lack of ability to use iSync with my Nokia phones,


Which model is it? 
I know that there have been a bunch of 3rd party add-ons, mostly free, which will made various 'unsupported' phones sync with iSync.


----------



## tarannau (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> I'll say one thing that fucks me off already though - given the lack of ability to use iSync with my Nokia phones, and I've used only Nokia since... dunno, 1993 or thereabouts - I'm having to manually type in all my contacts from my old phone to the laptop, to load them into the iPhone.
> 
> Which is a fucker when you've got 1067 of the bastards to carefully type out.
> 
> I've got to "H" and I'm bored shitless.



There are loads of free/shareware applications to link (unsupported) Nokia phones to Isync. 


Go to versiontracker or the likes of Feisar and I'll almost guarantee they exist. A quick google shows a link to an official Nokia 'driver'
http://uberthings.com/2008/05/07/nokia-isync-plugin-for-your-n95-n95-8gb/


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> Oh yes. Total win: So the writer had to go to the _Cayman Islands_ to get it to work! Oh, my poor sides.



Selective editing being your speciality, Editor (not that I'd dream of attacking your professional credibility)... he actually goes on to say...



> What worked best for me was to leave the case on the dashboard in the sun and plug in the iPhone when I was driving. The sun down here is strong and *I found the case gains charge rapidly - even with indirect sunlight.*



But hang on - we're talking about a £27 leather case (that you've never seen or heard of before I posted a link) that no doubt adds a little help to the perfectly adequate iPhone battery, which is a good thing for me, and a good thing I think to anyone else who owns an iPhone (which you do not).
I'm glad such a little thing has provided you with such mirth, though! 

I'm a happy customer, and that's what is important.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 6, 2009)

In fact Nokia list which phones they support for iSync here - http://europe.nokia.com/support/products/isync/compatibility
N95 8GB is listed, if that's still your phone. Needs a plugin which you can download from that page


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

tarannau said:


> There are loads of free/shareware applications to link (unsupported) Nokia phones to Isync.
> 
> 
> Go to versiontracker or the likes of Feisar and I'll almost guarantee they exist. A quick google shows a link to an official Nokia 'driver'
> http://uberthings.com/2008/05/07/nokia-isync-plugin-for-your-n95-n95-8gb/



I've been down this road, and unfortunately the plugins I've tried don't work with leopard 10.5.6 and isync 3... cheers though - I'll keep looking because this shit is tiresome!


----------



## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

Sync it with a windows computer, export the contacts, import them into OSX address book?


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> I've been down this road, and unfortunately the plugins I've tried don't work with leopard 10.5.6 and isync 3... cheers though - I'll keep looking because this shit is tiresome!



Check that Nokia link -


> Minimum requirements are Mac OS X 10.4.9 with iSync 2.4 to use the plug-in unless otherwise stated.


Worth another go, to save blunting the end of your fingers


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> Selective editing being your speciality, Editor (not that I'd dream of attacking your professional credibility)... he actually goes on to say...


Yes. _When he was driving around with it in the Cayman Islands!_ It didn't work in his office. That's why he had to fly off to a tropical island to get it working.  Can't you read?

I'm getting fed up with all your bullshit about me being anti-Mac, so let's put it to the test. Look up the last 30 posts in other threads from  me that mention the iPhone and you tell how many unfairly slag off the phone and how many praise it.

Are you big enough to do that? Or are you just going to keep on trolling away by repeating this bullshit?


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

Lazy Llama said:


> In fact Nokia list which phones they support for iSync here - http://europe.nokia.com/support/products/isync/compatibility
> N95 8GB is listed, if that's still your phone. Needs a plugin which you can download from that page



Wow, you fuckin' genius!

I was looking for yonks for a suitable plugin, then I find one here!

Had a quick look at the date it was created - November 13th 2008 - so it's a new one, and all my searching was in the summer, so I don't feel too stupid... but thanks a million, you've saved hours of arsing about!


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Sync it with a windows computer, export the contacts, import them into OSX address book?



I don't own a Windows computer. 
Six Macs, yes, but no windows computer, not even for comedy value.


----------



## Structaural (Jan 6, 2009)

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> Yes. _When he was driving around with it in the Cayman Islands!_ It didn't work in his office. That's why he had to fly off to a tropical island to get it working.  Can't you read?
> 
> I'm getting fed up with all your bullshit about me being anti-Mac, so let's put it to the test. Look up the last 30 posts in other threads from  me that mention the iPhone and you tell how many unfairly slag off the phone and how many praise it.
> 
> Are you big enough to do that? Or are you just going to keep on trolling away by repeating this bullshit?



Newsflash - that solar leather case isn't even made by Mac...

And I think it is you that needs to clean the old reading glasses... that article was quite clearly a pisstake ...



> Next I had to explain to my coworkers that this assignment would have to be lengthy as we won't have appropriate sun for testing on the northeast coast of the US for about six months. My editors were easily convinced but the finance team may have slipped me a dirty look or two - I am not quite sure as I was out the door and on the flight so fast that heads spun.





> Still, I feel this case requires more evaluation under strong equatorial sun and I expect to ensure the proper operation of this case in a manner with the quality you have come to expect in my blog



Now what is more likely - that he flew to the Cayman Islands for six months to test a $48 phone case, or that he was having a bit of fun on his blog while he spent Christmas away?

As for your anti-Mac rants - I'll leave that to the other Mac users who pull you up on it regularly to make their own minds up.
You've always been bizarrely dead set against all things Apple, and you know it. It's the only time you and I really ever argue, and like here, you create an argument when there really isn't one.

Fuck it, I hate Windows, so I'm not remotely fussed, but at least I know and accept that I have a sometimes irrational hatred of all things Microsoft.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> As for your anti-Mac rants - I'll leave that to the other Mac users who pull you up on it regularly to make their own minds up.


Back it up or shut it. It's that simple, because I'm bored with all your personal shit


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

Structaural said:


> http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> Back it up or shut it. It's that simple.



No time, I have phones to iSync.

Tell you what - you're happy to dredge up 7 month old posts of mine, why not try that search engine on yourself!

None of that naughty selective editing though, y'hear??

(and chill out for fucks sake)


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 6, 2009)

Structaural said:


> http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary



Mutter mutter ... http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=8558856&postcount=58


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> No time, I have phones to iSync.


Wriggle on, squire.


----------



## Structaural (Jan 6, 2009)

Lazy Llama said:


> Mutter mutter ... http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=8558856&postcount=58



oops sorry mate - thread ran away from me


----------



## g force (Jan 6, 2009)

Prefer this: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=noe3kR8KqJc


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> Wriggle on, squire.



Sigh...

Sorry pal, my days of scrolling through years worth of wibble to prove some petty little point (which is as plain as day to any Mac owner who has been here long enough) are over.

I have, y'know, more important shit to be getting on with.

However, if yourself or anyone else has the inclination to be arsed, do a search with the term "fan-boi" under editor's name, I'm sure the results you seek will be there for all to see.


----------



## Structaural (Jan 6, 2009)

g force said:


> Prefer this: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=noe3kR8KqJc



superb... and spot on... *clicks three times on mic to rewind track, pulls muscle in finger*.

I was using the missus's macbook the other day, why haven't they put a second button on the trackpad yet? fuckers. 

I can see a cheap netbook being my first laptop, can they do torrenting?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 6, 2009)

Structaural said:


> superb... and spot on... *clicks three times on mic to rewind track, pulls muscle in finger*.
> 
> I was using the missus's macbook the other day, why haven't they put a second button on the trackpad yet? fuckers.
> 
> I can see a cheap netbook being my first laptop, can they do torrenting?



You can right click on a macbook trackpad by tapping once with 2 fingers.


----------



## Pie 1 (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> Yes. _When he was driving around with it in the Cayman Islands!_ It didn't work in his office. That's why he had to fly off to a tropical island to get it working.  Can't you read?
> 
> I'm getting fed up with all your bullshit about me being anti-Mac, so let's put it to the test. Look up the last 30 posts in other threads from  me that mention the iPhone and you tell how many unfairly slag off the phone and how many praise it.
> 
> Are you big enough to do that? Or are you just going to keep on trolling away by repeating this bullshit?



Oh, shut up!!! 
Fucks sake.


----------



## Pie 1 (Jan 6, 2009)

Apple store site closed for updating...


----------



## Structaural (Jan 6, 2009)

Vintage Paw said:


> You can right click on a macbook trackpad by tapping once with 2 fingers.



I know, it kept popping up when I was trying to two finger scroll


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 6, 2009)

Pie 1 said:


> Apple store site closed for updating...



Orly? 

I'm bored of waiting and just want to know. I hate all this hyped up anticipation bollocks.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 6, 2009)

Structaural said:


> I know, it kept popping up when I was trying to two finger scroll



Heh, you get used to using a light touch. I do two-finger scroll too. I never use the trackpad button - just set the trackpad to understand taps.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

Vintage Paw said:


> I hate all this hyped up anticipation bollocks.


Me too. I don't know any major company who has to close their entire store do a few product updates and, besides, I haven't forgiven them for making me sit through their last big press launch which was _painful._

Three songs from some warbling fuckwit and no, "And finally...." for my troubles!


----------



## Structaural (Jan 6, 2009)

Vintage Paw said:


> Heh, you get used to using a light touch. I do two-finger scroll too. I never use the trackpad button - just set the trackpad to understand taps.



That did seem to help (when I wasn't sticking things to my finger accidently with double-tap drag). 
I think I just hate trackpads, you run out of real estate too quickly.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 6, 2009)

Structaural said:


> That did seem to help (when I wasn't sticking things to my finger accidently with double-tap drag).
> I think I just hate trackpads, you run out of real estate too quickly.



Yeah, that's true. I far prefer a mouse.


----------



## Pie 1 (Jan 6, 2009)

Vintage Paw said:


> I hate all this hyped up anticipation bollocks.



I went there to compare prices on some headphones


----------



## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

Pie 1 said:


> I went there to compare prices on some headphones


You don't want to buy apple headphones anyway


----------



## Vintage Paw (Jan 6, 2009)

Pie 1 said:


> I went there to compare prices on some headphones



I didn't say you were being all anticipatory and bollocks, just that I hate that sort of thing, and them closing down the website fuels it. 

I'm a curmudgeon though, so I hate most things.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

Vintage Paw said:


> I didn't say you were being all anticipatory and bollocks, just that I hate that sort of thing, and them closing down the website fuels it.
> 
> I'm a curmudgeon though, so I hate most things.


The Sennheiser CX300 Eco Ear Canal Headphones are a mighty fine buy at just £17 on Amazon, if you're interested.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sennheiser-...S8EUNM/ref=dp_ob_title_ce/277-6823758-7243840


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 6, 2009)

Crispy said:


> You don't want to buy apple headphones anyway



They do sell others too, y'know 

I bought my v-moda's from an Apple Store, and they have been excellent. Apart from the left one has just stopped working now. Which isn't so excellent.  Should be covered under the warranty though.

Fortunately, it's now cold enough that I can wear my earmuffs with built-in headphones on the walk to work. And I only look like 3 shades of dork doing so.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> The Sennheiser CX300 Eco Ear Canal Headphones are a mighty fine buy at just £17 on Amazon, if you're interested.
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sennheiser-...S8EUNM/ref=dp_ob_title_ce/277-6823758-7243840


I needed new phones. I'm sold!


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

Crispy said:


> I needed new phones. I'm sold!


I'm ordering a pair too. 

*gets in quick before Crispy scoops up all the stock


----------



## Pie 1 (Jan 6, 2009)

Crispy said:


> You don't want to buy apple headphones anyway



I know. 
I'm eyeing up those Bose quietsound jobbies

Though I should step away - they're silly money.


----------



## Pie 1 (Jan 6, 2009)

Vintage Paw said:


> I didn't say you were being all anticipatory and bollocks



I know. 
The roll eye were for apple closing their site when I wanted to look at headphones 

<interwebnetz misunderstanding No. 33874645343>


----------



## exleper (Jan 6, 2009)

Realtime coverage of the keynote speech is being given at www.macrumorslive.com, with photos, it's just started now.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> The Sennheiser CX300 Eco Ear Canal Headphones are a mighty fine buy at just £17 on Amazon, if you're interested.
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sennheiser-...S8EUNM/ref=dp_ob_title_ce/277-6823758-7243840



I got them (I swear by Sennheiser after having the shit Apple ones), they're excellent.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

exleper said:


> Realtime coverage of the keynote speech is being given at www.macrumorslive.com, with photos, it's just started now.


Oooh face recognition in iphoto.

Bet it's shit


----------



## Sunray (Jan 6, 2009)

Nothing interesting so far.


----------



## exleper (Jan 6, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Oooh face recognition in iphoto.
> 
> Bet it's shit


Looks like a nice gimmick, but it seems a bit overshadowed by Picasa for Mac being announced today...we shall see, I suppose.  Nice touch to use the GPS data though, I always wondered what the point of that was with cameras.


----------



## exleper (Jan 6, 2009)

Sunray said:


> Nothing interesting so far.


There's not going to be anything mind-blowing today really; the biggest news is Jobs, notable by his absence and illness.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 6, 2009)

They could announce Cut and Paste for the iPhone and that would get world wide press coverage.

How nuts would that be.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Oooh face recognition in iphoto.
> 
> Bet it's shit


Picasa already has something similar. Never used it.

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-03-n49.html


----------



## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> Picasa already has something similar. Never used it.
> 
> http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-03-n49.html


Yeah, but online Picasa only - not the desktop software - so a bit limiting.


----------



## tarannau (Jan 6, 2009)

I just clicked on that keynote address live link and this message popped up amongst the anodyne titbits



> STEVE JOBS JUST DIED


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 6, 2009)

> 9:27 am	Steve did not die.
> 9:27 am	Retraction on Steve Jobs comment...we don't know how that got in our feed.
> 9:26 am	Showing a "pumpkin patch" event with no geotag. Starts typing name, and iPhoto assists using its database of locations.
> 9:25 am	Hovering over a pin at Aspen. Click an arrow and go straight to all Aspen photos, even across multiple events.
> 9:24 am	STEVE JOBS JUST DIED :


Somebody's fucking with them


----------



## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

> 9:29 am	SEX ME
> 9:28 am	iMovie '09



Oh dear oh dear


----------



## exleper (Jan 6, 2009)

> 9:29 am	SEX ME


This hacking may turn out to be more entertaining than the actual keynote itself...


----------



## tarannau (Jan 6, 2009)

Heh. And I thought it was a cunning way of keeping interest myself. List of new features in imovie? ZZzzzzzzz

I see the hacker's now shouting 'SEX ME'


----------



## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

Ah, it was 4chan  (natch)


----------



## Kanda (Jan 6, 2009)

rofl!!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 6, 2009)

I have a feeling their live updating system may not be the most secure ever devised 


> Sponsor
> 4CHAN.ORG /G/URUS FOR THE FUCKING WIN
> 9:31 am	Randy: Let's see some editing.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 6, 2009)

oh, and they pulled it

right, now where?


----------



## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/01/06/macworld-2009-keynote-liveblog/#continued


----------



## exleper (Jan 6, 2009)

Might have guessed it was those cheeky folks from /b/...

Still, I'm interested to see if iMovie '09 will be any good, since 08 was a bit of a screw up for many people.  Pleased to see precision editing there.


----------



## pinkychukkles (Jan 6, 2009)

Who's 4chan? Some well known hackerz on t'interweb?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 6, 2009)

pinkychukkles said:


> Who's 4chan? Some well known hackerz on t'interweb?



long story, bunch of trolls mostly and mostly technotards, but there's one or two who can do stuff


----------



## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

balls to this. I'm going home and will catch up later.


----------



## RaverDrew (Jan 6, 2009)

exleper said:


> Realtime coverage of the keynote speech is being given at www.macrumorslive.com, with photos, it's just started now.



goatse


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 6, 2009)

The iMovie looks pretty good, but they're running out of time a bit if they've got anything else.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 6, 2009)

3 things he said, iLife 09 is just the first....

Hmm...


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 6, 2009)

iWork 09. wow, yeah, like, great, or something.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> The iMovie looks pretty good, but they're running out of time a bit if they've got anything else.



Are they? I thought these things sometimes went on for hours, is there a scheduled end time?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 6, 2009)

The address is usually an hour and a half or less ime.


----------



## 43mhz (Jan 6, 2009)

iLife, iWork, iSleep?


----------



## exleper (Jan 6, 2009)

Nobody promised any big exciting news, non-mac fanboys need not apply...


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 6, 2009)

iWork.com

Oh.


----------



## 43mhz (Jan 6, 2009)

I was hoping to at least see a mac mini revision


----------



## Sunray (Jan 6, 2009)

zzzzzzZZZZZzzzzz........


----------



## johnnymarrsbars (Jan 6, 2009)

i've been getting progressively disappointed with the mwsf keynote since about 2003 when the 12 and 17 ince pb's were announced...and im what editor would probably call a 'fanboy'


----------



## exleper (Jan 6, 2009)

43mhz said:


> I was hoping to at least see a mac mini revision


That's probably on it's way now.  We've only had two of the '3 new things', by my count.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

johnnymarrsbars said:


> i've been getting progressively disappointed with the mwsf keynote since about 2003 when the 12 and 17 ince pb's were announced...and im what editor would probably call a 'fanboy'


Isn't that just because they've been hyped up to such ridiculous levels and people's expectations stoked up beyond reason?

I went to the iPod nano launch and although the new players were quite nice, the whole affair stunk of over-the-top hype and the products couldn't be justified by the big launch fanfare.

Maybe that's why Apple are stopping doing them now. They've been eaten by their own hype.


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

Loving the fact they got hacked 

On a serious note - image stabilising for iMovie (shit though it is, it's ideal for amateurs) brings pretty cool technology to the consumer market.

Geotagging in the photo apps is cool enough, and way ahead of anyone else, but it gives me the creeps. Function creeps.
Facial recognition - useless gimmick to me, but useful for stalkers.

Instructional features to Garageband - can't knock that. Music apps are core to the success of the Mac brand.

Spreadsheets and bar charts... yawn... not my bag...


----------



## johnnymarrsbars (Jan 6, 2009)

appleinsider have this

10:11 am: EXCLUSIVE: Macworld Expo banners are only about iWork, iLife!


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2009)

OK the 17" unibody is the one more thing. 

I thought they would also refresh iMac and Mac Mini, and mention Snow Leopard, that was sort of my minimum expectation.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 6, 2009)

Only thing that raises a flicker of interest is the good use of their own technology.  The iPhone displaying and being a remote control for the presentation software is a master class on how to leverage all the things you make to add value, the rest is for mac fans.


----------



## exleper (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> Isn't that just because they've been hyped up to such ridiculous levels and people's expectations stoked up beyond reason?
> 
> I went to the iPod nano launch and although the new players were quite nice, the whole affair stunk of over-the-top hype and the products couldn't be justified by the big launch fanfare.
> 
> Maybe that's why Apple are stopping doing them now. They've been eaten by their own hype.


Hmmm... Not sure about that.  There's been nothing on the Apple website even alluding to Macworld, or any new product line.  Most of the hype tends to come from the cult-like fanbase and media coverage - Apple is the most media-friendly technology company in the world.  I don't know, there's probably a bit of a chicken-egg argument there.

Personally I'm quite looking forward to seeing the new features in iLife '09, looks good so far.


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

10:07 am: Lots of reporters seem bored about a new iLife and iWork, but if this was Microsoft, that's all there'd be, and we'd have to pretent to get excited about Office


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

elbows;8561726]OK the 17" unibody is the one more thing. [/quote]With a non removable battery.[quote=pk said:


> 10:07 am: Lots of reporters seem bored about a new iLife and iWork, but if this was Microsoft, that's all there'd be, and we'd have to pretent to get excited about Office


Why do you keep going on about Microsoft?


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 6, 2009)

Integrated battery in the 17" MBP  but with an 8 hour life.

Mind you, the only time I've ever bought spare batteries for my laptops have been when the old ones didn't hold much charge any more.


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> With a non removable battery.Why do you keep going on about Microsoft?



What's more boring, the Expo drivel or your incessant anti-Mac bitching?


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

Lazy Llama said:


> Integrated battery in the 17" MBP  but with an 8 hour life.
> 
> Mind you, the only time I've ever bought spare batteries for my laptops have been when the old ones didn't hold much charge any more.



Precisely. As an owner of not one but two Mac laptops, it's not really an issue for me and I'm a high end user.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> What's more boring, the Expo drivel or your incessant anti-Mac bitching?


Zzzzz. Stop it now, please.


----------



## johnnymarrsbars (Jan 6, 2009)

editor, to be honest mate, we know you don't like apple. no need to keep banging on about it all the time...


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> With a non removable battery.Why do you keep going on about Microsoft?



I'm reporting the live feed from appleinsider... on a Macworld new Apple product rumours thread.

Even their most boring keynote pisses on all the efforts of Microsoft in the past 3 years.

I know you hate it, but you could take a deep breath and browse another thread if you don't like what you're reading...


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> Isn't that just because they've been hyped up to such ridiculous levels and people's expectations stoked up beyond reason?



Zzzzz. Stop it now please.

Why not let people who apprieciate the developing technology enjoy it without your ill-informed cynical nonsense for a change?


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2009)

Oh sounds like there i a one more thing about itunes - could be the death of DRM thing.


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

elbows said:


> Oh sounds like there i a one more thing about itunes - could be the death of DRM thing.



Old news - had to happen anyway.

Though it looks like it might get the biggest cheer at this rate...


----------



## Sunray (Jan 6, 2009)

Hey the 1st people to actually make use of the well known fact that li-p batteries can be made any shape and are much lighter than normal li-ion.  Li-ion is in danger of catching fire on recharge and therefore require heavy metal cases.  li-p isn't in such danger and uses a form of aerogel as the electrolyte, which is another reason for their light weight.  More expensive technology as you can see you have to make them yourself to your own spec.  Not taken off because its easier and cheaper to buy off the shelf tech.

Its hardly new all that, but again someone brave enough to take that on and make it.  8 hours for a fully fledged laptop is a serious amount of time.

Downside is the batteries are going to come from Apple, nobody else is going to be bothered gearing up the tech required to make them.


----------



## exleper (Jan 6, 2009)

Yep - no DRM by the end of Q1.


----------



## Kanda (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> With a non removable battery.


 
That they claim has an 8 hour life!!


----------



## 43mhz (Jan 6, 2009)

Oh well.. the new iMovie looks good


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

Never saw the point of the 17" laptop - I usually connect a 23" cinema screen for presentation work...


10:21 am: Thinnest (.98 inches) and lightest (6.6lbs) 17" laptop. 3 USB ports, FW 800. *Still no FW400 then. Cunts*

10:19 am: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600MT graphics, 320GB HD or 256GB SDD (flash drive) option, up to 8GB of RAM. *Not bad.*

10:17 am: New "integrated battery" (non removable) rated for 8 hour charge. 1000 charge cycles, more enviromentally friendly battery technology.

Environmentally friendly or not - you can't remove the battery!!

(sobs)


----------



## johnnymarrsbars (Jan 6, 2009)

"10:32 PT - JS: "The Best Is Yet to Come," Tony Bennett sings. Message from Apple received."

from macworld.com


one more one more thing? maybe?


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

43mhz said:


> Oh well.. the new iMovie looks good



It does, really good.

I'm a bit worried, actually!  Some kid will be putting me out of a job before too long!!


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

Keynote remote looks cool too - remote control of larger systems from an iPhone...


----------



## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

iTunes remote is already very cool


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

Crispy said:


> iTunes remote is already very cool



Yeah but the same functionality from an iPhone... dunno about you but my little white remote is still in the box 5 months later after the initial pissing about on iTunes.

I just don't carry one about, but the phone I do, so kudos for sorting out a proper solution!


----------



## paolo (Jan 6, 2009)

Crispy said:


> iTunes remote is already very cool



Gobsmackingly  (I'm assuming you mean the iPhone/iTouch app)


----------



## Sunray (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> Never saw the point of the 17" laptop - I usually connect a 23" cinema screen for presentation work...
> 
> 
> 10:21 am: Thinnest (.98 inches) and lightest (6.6lbs) 17" laptop. 3 USB ports, FW 800. *Still no FW400 then. Cunts*
> ...



Eh? 

FW800 is backward compatible with FW400 except that FW800 has a different connector, just need a little 800-400 converter.  The only actual difference is there is more grounded shielding on 800.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> Yeah but the same functionality from an iPhone... dunno about you but my little white remote is still in the box 5 months later after the initial pissing about on iTunes.
> 
> I just don't carry one about, but the phone I do, so kudos for sorting out a proper solution!



The itunes remote he refers to is an iphone app.


----------



## exleper (Jan 6, 2009)

So...no new Mac Mini?  All the rumour sites seemed fairly confident, but nothing...


----------



## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

paolo999 said:


> Gobsmackingly  (I'm assuming you mean the iPhone/iTouch app)



Exactly. It's had heavy use already and I've only had it a couple of weeks!


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

elbows said:


> The itunes remote he refers to is an iphone app.



Ah.

Dunno if it's the same as the one I d/l'ed yesterday but if it is - version 1.1.1 doesn't seem to do much...


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

Sunray said:


> Eh?
> 
> FW800 is backward compatible with FW400 except that FW800 has a different connector, just need a little 800-400 converter.  The only actual difference is there is more grounded shielding on 800.



Trust me, the last thing you want to do is use those little plastic connectors... any loose connections or some dipshit tripping up on your cables during a render and you can wave farewell to your work.

I'd be happy if they shipped the new machines with retrofit cables, proper ones, with a good sturdy build and lockable sockets, but in the heat of battle, resorting to shit adaptors is a surefire route to Weepyland.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

Sunray said:


> Downside is the batteries are going to come from Apple, nobody else is going to be bothered gearing up the tech required to make them.


Surely the biggest downside is having to send off your laptop stuffed full of your valuable personal data when the battery needs changing, no?


----------



## Crispy (Jan 6, 2009)

It controls my entire iTunes library in the same way I control the music on the ipod. What more do you need it to do?


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> Surely the biggest downside is having to send off your laptop stuffed full of your valuable personal data when the battery needs changing, no?



I'd certainly have backed up and password protected all my shit before sending it anywhere - and I'd want it done in the shop while I wait.

8 hours though - pretty cool - any other laptop machines come close to that?

I can think of none...


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> I'd certainly have backed up and password protected all my shit before sending it anywhere - and I'd want it done in the shop while I wait.
> 
> 8 hours though - pretty cool - any other laptop machines come close to that?
> 
> I can think of none...


Eight hours is cool but I agree with the Engadget comment: 





> Sorry, I just don't see the advantage of a therotical advanced battery over the usefulness of replacing it. As a graphic artist, I burn though battery power when I need to use it. Real world usage in the Adobe Suite alone will kill any battery at a fast rate.


Don't know about 17" models, but there's certainly laptops claiming longer uptimes - HP and Dell have both produced 18+ hour models.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/hp-elitebook-laptop,6339.html

I still wouldn't fancy having to send off my laptop or trudge to a shop to pay for some herbert to change the battery.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> Surely the biggest downside is having to send off your laptop stuffed full of your valuable personal data when the battery needs changing, no?



Well, 8 hours and a light laptop or a removable battery and heavy.   They made the decision that they wanted 8 hours and lightness because your going to have to dismantle the laptop to remove it.

They do them in the big shops while you wait I think.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> Trust me, the last thing you want to do is use those little plastic connectors... any loose connections or some dipshit tripping up on your cables during a render and you can wave farewell to your work.
> 
> I'd be happy if they shipped the new machines with retrofit cables, proper ones, with a good sturdy build and lockable sockets, but in the heat of battle, resorting to shit adaptors is a surefire route to Weepyland.



Just buy bilingual cables?  Your never going to see a FW400 port on a Mac ever again.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> Eight hours is cool but I agree with the Engadget comment: Don't know about 17" models, but there's certainly laptops claiming longer uptimes - HP and Dell have both produced 18+ hour models.
> http://www.tomshardware.com/news/hp-elitebook-laptop,6339.html



My friend got one of those Dells that claims to have a 19 hour battery life. When he got it he found iirc that (a) that's only if you purchase a special super battery pack, which the salesman didn't tell him, and which was about the same size as the laptop or something, and also (b) they didn't, er, actually sell the battery pack yet. He sent it back and told them to bugger off.


----------



## pk (Jan 6, 2009)

I think they should just rename Dell.

They should just call it "LOL".


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 6, 2009)

Sunray said:


> FW800 is backward compatible with FW400 except that FW800 has a different connector, just need a little 800-400 converter.  The only actual difference is there is more grounded shielding on 800.



Try telling that to some of the audio interfaces out there that go batshit when you try to use them.  Apple have seriously pissed off large sections of the pro audio community with this latest "upgrade".

And however you spin it, a non removable battery on a supposedly professional machine is utter fucking shite.  8 hours is fuck all if you're working out on location somewhere for a couple of days.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2009)

Well Apple are doing me a favor during the economic woetime, they keep releasing products that Ive no interest in buying, saving me from the temptation to get into more debt.


----------



## teqniq (Jan 6, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Try telling that to some of the audio interfaces out there that go batshit when you try to use them.  Apple have seriously pissed off large sections of the pro audio community with this latest "upgrade".
> 
> And however you spin it, a non removable battery on a supposedly professional machine is utter fucking shite.  8 hours is fuck all if you're working out on location somewhere for a couple of days.


And this is what decided me against buying a new macbook (the fact that they've ditched firewire on that model completely). So getting a dell inspiron 1525 and sticking osx 86 on it instead.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

Well, what a massive anti climax that was.

Hands on videos here: http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/06/macbook-pro-17-inch-first-hands-on/
Some of the comments are interesting too.


----------



## dogmatique (Jan 6, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> And however you spin it, a non removable battery on a supposedly professional machine is utter fucking shite.  8 hours is fuck all if you're working out on location somewhere for a couple of days.



Que Griffin and Belkin et al producing a myriad of big fat mobile battery chargers.  Which'll add more bulk / cables to your kit rather than extra mac batteries.  Brilliant idea!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2009)

A new bloody laptop and that's it? Pfft. Apple have lost it.


----------



## cybertect (Jan 6, 2009)

pk said:


> 10:17 am: New "integrated battery" (non removable) rated for 8 hour charge. *1000 charge cycles*, more enviromentally friendly battery technology.
> 
> Environmentally friendly or not - you can't remove the battery!!
> 
> (sobs)



While the idea of a non-removable battery is quite a big no-no, that's the bit that makes me think it _may_ be OK. 

I've very rarely needed a spare battery, but I tend to find I exhaust a 300 cycle battery on my PowerBook/MacBooks in about 18 months. With 1000 8-hour cycles, it should last the useful life of the machine if it's up to spec.

e2a: not that I'm about to go out and buy a 17" right now. My last gen 15" will do me nicely for a while yet.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2009)

The 17" costs £1949. At those sort of prices I cant imagine owning another Macbook Pro in future.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

johnnymarrsbars said:


> editor, to be honest mate, we know you don't like apple. no need to keep banging on about it all the time...


God, not this again. I'm not anti-Apple, I'm just against the ridiculous hyperbole that the company stirs up in normally rational people, and I find some of their restrictive practices of some concern. Commenting on such things may draw a near-hysterical and often needlessly personal reaction from some Apple fans, but I've every right to chip in, even if it does disturb the love-fest. After all, we're all interested in technology here right?

And just to put this 'anti-Apple' crap to bed, if I was so against the company, I'd hardly put their phone in my list of the  *top 5 gadgets of 2008*, would I?


> *5. Apple iPhone/Touch*
> There's not a lot to love about Apple's restrictive app-vetting practices, but there's no denying that these devices look fantastic and make most rivals look like clumsy bodge-o-tools.


Here's what else I've said:


> ...it's a stylish and slick phone that has redefined consumer expectations of smartphones





> The iPhone destroys the Palm's phones when it comes to looks, attractiveness and Wi-Fi...





> ...the obvious choice would be the Apple iPhone, with its beautiful interface and sleek form factor and a user experience that makes other phones look like stone tablets. Installing apps is a breeze, and using the phone is a joyous experience from start to finish.


Can we get on with discussing Apple now please?


----------



## paolo (Jan 6, 2009)

There's two Eds: One a who has some hot spots, and will repeat the argument in case anyone hasn't got the point yet, an another which is quite considered and balanced. That's my lot. Not getting drawn any further into this.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2009)

paolo999 said:


> There's two Eds: One a who has some hot spots, and will repeat the argument in case anyone hasn't got the point yet, an another which is quite considered and balanced. That's my lot. Not getting drawn any further into this.



Yep, that's my experience also. I'm nice to the sane one and treat the mad one as a bit of a joke.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yep, that's my experience also. I'm nice to the sane one and treat the mad one as a bit of a joke.


Sadly, there's also two Kid_Eternitys: the pleasant one ready to talk tech and the other one who never misses a chance to join in when someone's having a go at me and add his own little personal attack  ("the mad one" indeed).

I've lost count of the amount of times you've done this to me recently. It's always unprovoked and it's becoming very tiresome. Why do you feel the need to keep doing it?


----------



## Kanda (Jan 6, 2009)

editor said:


> I've lost count of the amount of times you've done this to me recently. It's very tiresome. Why do you feel the need to keep doing it?



It depends which Editor is out to play on any given day I guess


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2009)

Kanda said:


> It depends which Editor is out to play on any given day I guess


You haven't a clue what you're talking about. Oh well.

Still, keep it coming. Best get it all out and really fuck up the thread.


----------



## Kanda (Jan 6, 2009)

Whatever


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

Back on topic, here's Engadget's verdict:



> *Macworld '09: a show of no-shows*​ With Phil doing the honors, nobody really thought Apple was planning on revolutionizing anything this morning -- sure, there were plenty of rumors, like always, but most people weren't expecting the moon. What we were expecting, however, was for Apple to come clean on a few things, so bear with us as we file this missing persons report.
> 
> *Notably absent:*
> 
> ...


Can't see why they're whining about not hearing any news of an OS that's been promised in six months time...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 7, 2009)

It would have been nice to hear about Snow Leopard but they never do "work in progress" updates at these things. It's always things which are ready right then or within a few weeks.


----------



## exleper (Jan 7, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> A new bloody laptop and that's it? Pfft. Apple have lost it.


Yes, of course, you're right.  They've lost it.  Surely they're just a few days from bankruptcy after today's events...


----------



## paolo (Jan 7, 2009)

The promised but as yet undelivered iPhone push architecture is a biiig thing. The stuff if could facilitate is huge. Not just messenger, but allsorts. It could possibly be the plague of notifications, but it's something that facilitates a step change in the way a pocket device can be used.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 7, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Try telling that to some of the audio interfaces out there that go batshit when you try to use them.  Apple have seriously pissed off large sections of the pro audio community with this latest "upgrade".
> 
> And however you spin it, a non removable battery on a supposedly professional machine is utter fucking shite.  8 hours is fuck all if you're working out on location somewhere for a couple of days.



If you don't want it don't buy it?  I know I'm not going to its a two grand laptop?  I like it because its a brave decision to use new manufacturing techniques and technology like they have.  Far too much generic off the shelf low tech components used in new technology these days.  Li-polymer batteries were invented over 5 years ago, nobody uses them because they are too cautious and instead reached for the Li-Ion off the shelf ones instead.

As for their IEEE1394b implementation. Apple know how to design decent hardware. They actually have a very long history of making reliable kit. 

What's happened is that Apple implements its IEEE1394b interface to specification (its a international standard ratified in 2002) .  Unfortunately the so called 'Pro' (I hate that moniker, don't get 'Pro' computer hardware do you?) didn't implement their IEEE1394a interface properly.  Old slack tolerant FW400 spec didn't mind.  Now its being implemented strictly because the tolerances are much tighter which is what the spec said do from day one, to ensure compatibility.  Suddenly all that 'Pro' gear producers are left red faced, prolly sourced their firewire interface from Mr Wong in some back street in Taipei.  So they blame Apple and hope nobody runs a IEEE1394a spec test against their kit.  

As part developer of the IEEE1394 standard I can, with a high degree of certainty, say that Apples stuff will meet their own specification.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

Sunray said:


> Li-polymer batteries were invented over 5 years ago, nobody uses them because they are too cautious and instead reached for the Li-Ion off the shelf ones instead..


Actually, they're already used in Amazon's Kindle, Lenovo's Thinkpad X300 and Ultrabay Batteries, the OQO series of palmtops, and Dell products featuring D-bay batteries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_polymer_battery

According to this article, Sony were the first to begin large-scale commercialisation of Li-polymer technology back in 1997.
http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=1629


----------



## Sunray (Jan 7, 2009)

I have a Li-Polymer batter for my iPhone power pack, thats why its only 90g for a 3400mAh battery.  They are in use, its just they haven't taken off like they were supposed to, the main battery technology you will find just about anywhere today is still Li-Ion. 

The compelling reason for Li-p is that the battery packs can be moulded into any shape you like.  Probably for cost reasons, you'd have to manufacture the batteries yourself and that Li-Ion has improved to a point that the power/cost/replacment implications have meant its hard to justify its use.  

Apple have shit loads of money.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

Sunray said:


> The compelling reason for Li-p is that the battery packs can be moulded into any shape you like.  Probably for cost reasons, you'd have to manufacture the batteries yourself and that Li-Ion has improved to a point that the power/cost/replacment implications have meant its hard to justify its use.
> 
> Apple have shit loads of money.


Interesting that Lenova managed to offer a _removable_ Li-Polymer battery to their (superb) X300 laptop.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 7, 2009)

They are not then getting the benefit of making the case a battery, just the benefit of the weight with little or no gain in the power stakes over Li-ion.  I wonder how much that battery costs to buy?

I find battery university a useful resource on battery technology.




			
				http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-5.htm said:
			
		

> Lithium-ion-polymer has not caught on as quickly as some analysts had expected. Its superiority to other systems and low manufacturing costs has not been realized. No improvements in capacity gains are achieved - in fact, the capacity is slightly less than that of the standard lithium-ion battery. Lithium-ion-polymer finds its market niche in wafer-thin geometries, such as batteries for credit cards and other such applications.
> 
> Advantages
> 
> ...


----------



## The Groke (Jan 7, 2009)

No-one has mentioned the (long overdue) move to DRM free iTunes "plus" format for the rest of the iTunes store library.

Bit narked they are actually charging you 30% to upgrade previous purchases to DRM free, but it is a shaky, begrudging step in the right direction at last.


----------



## Pie 1 (Jan 7, 2009)

editor said:


> Eight hours is cool but I agree with the Engadget comment: Don't know about 17" models, but there's certainly laptops claiming longer uptimes - HP and Dell have both produced 18+ hour models.
> http://www.tomshardware.com/news/hp-elitebook-laptop,6339.html
> 
> I still wouldn't fancy having to send off my laptop or trudge to a shop to pay for some herbert to change the battery.





It's shit. 
How long do you reckon a MBP battery lasts with a medium format digital camera stuffing 80mb down a FW into it every time the shutter's pressed?

Not fucking 8 hours.

E2A:
interesting option appeared on the configuration specs for the 17":
'MacBook Pro 17-inch Hi-Resolution Antiglare Widescreen Display [+ CHF 65.00] '


----------



## Pie 1 (Jan 7, 2009)

> that yearly grind of expectation is probably one of the reasons the company is bowing out of Macworld altogether



There's probably more than a grain of truth in this.
Lol! even Apple are sick of their fan boi's


----------



## pk (Jan 7, 2009)

Pie 1 said:


> There's probably more than a grain of truth in this.
> Lol! even Apple are sick of their fan boi's



Well that's the thing you have to ask - do Apple really court the fervent obsessive nerds who probably don't spend that much money anyway in the grand scheme of things?

Do they really want to be surrounded by legions of Star Trek convention drop-outs every time they do a PR event?

When I go to an Apple store it's to buy something, not to stand around fondling the stuff like they were religious artifacts, or talk endless shit to some other nerd at the Genius Bar.

Face it, these kind of fuckwits are getting in the way of straightforward retail.

Bludgeon them to death with a Mac Mini and get them out the way, I want to see Apple TV develop into a full service covering not only entertainment but educational resources. 

I want to see wristwatch phones, in-car entertainment systems, home management hardware to control all aspects of energy and security.

I think we all know how an iPod works now, time to come up with something new, fuck the nerds.


----------



## cybertect (Jan 7, 2009)

Pie 1 said:


> It's shit.
> How long do you reckon a MBP battery lasts with a medium format digital camera stuffing 80mb down a FW into it every time the shutter's pressed?



If the demand is there, I guess we'll see more 3rd party external batteries like these.

http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/05/13/extended.battery.upgrade/

http://www.batterygeek.net/Batterygeek-15-21-130-External-Laptop-Battery-p/15-21-130_batterygeek.htm



Pie 1 said:


> Iinteresting option appeared on the configuration specs for the 17":
> 'MacBook Pro 17-inch Hi-Resolution Antiglare Widescreen Display [+ CHF 65.00] '



I think that's the non-glossy screen option.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

Sunray said:


> They are not then getting the benefit of making the case a battery, just the benefit of the weight with little or no gain in the power stakes over Li-ion.  I wonder how much that battery costs to buy?


Around 85 quid, with cheaper third party options. The bay option gives you even more battery life.


Swarfega said:


> No-one has mentioned the (long overdue) move to DRM free iTunes "plus" format for the rest of the iTunes store library.
> 
> Bit narked they are actually charging you 30% to upgrade previous purchases to DRM free, but it is a shaky, begrudging step in the right direction at last.


Rival firm 7Digital has an interesting take on Apple's 'DRM-free' move:


> Ben Drury, CEO of independent online music store 7digital.com has a good point to make on Apple's DRM-free claim.
> 
> "Downloads from iTunes are still in the AAC file format regardless of whether they are DRM-free," Drury reminds TechRadar.
> 
> ...











cybertect said:


> If the demand is there, I guess we'll see more 3rd party external batteries like these.
> 
> http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/05/13/extended.battery.upgrade/


That's horribly unwieldy. What's the point of buying a slick and slim, expensive super laptop if you have to lug all that extra bulk around with you? And at 300 bucks, it's a  hefty price compared to a spare battery.


----------



## Pie 1 (Jan 7, 2009)

My location battery:


----------



## Kanda (Jan 7, 2009)

> "The AAC file format is only compatible with iPods/iPhones and a limited number of other devices. So consumers who buy downloads from iTunes are still restricted to where they can play that music regardless of whether it's DRM free or not."



There's a convert to MP3 option within iTunes. Not sure on any loss of quality but I play stuff I've downloaded from iTunes on numerous devices including CDJ's..  So no real restriction at all.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

Kanda said:


> There's a convert to MP3 option within iTunes. Not sure on any loss of quality but I play stuff I've downloaded from iTunes on numerous devices including CDJ's..  So no real restriction at all.


I'd call having to convert every single music file a bit of a restriction myself.

Elsewhere, Apple are charging punters 20p per track to convert their iTunes purchases to the new DRM-free versions.


> Apple is charging British customers 20p per track to convert their iTunes purchases to the new DRM-free versions.
> 
> The iPod maker announced yesterday that it had signed a deal with all four major record labels to make the entire iTunes catalogue DRM-free by the end of the spring.
> 
> ...


Interestingly: 





> The username of the iTunes account holder is embedded in the track's metadata, however, raising the possibility that Apple or the music labels may pursue those who upload the DRM-free music to file-sharing sites.


----------



## DotCommunist (Jan 7, 2009)




----------



## Kanda (Jan 7, 2009)

editor said:


> I'd call having to convert every single music file a bit of a restriction myself.



It really is simple though, you just select as many as you want in the iTunes window, then click convert to MP3.

Sod paying the 20p though, just write them to CD and re-rip them.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

Kanda said:


> Sod paying the 20p though, just write them to CD and re-rip them.


That's a fair bit of faffing, especially if you've got thousands of songs - you'd be there all day!

And don't you end up with a worse quality version at the end of it all?


----------



## Kanda (Jan 7, 2009)

editor said:


> That's a fair bit of faffing, especially if you've got thousands of songs - you'd be there all day!
> 
> And don't you end up with a worse quality version at the end of it all?



Not sure I know anyone that has literally bought 1000's of songs from iTunes. Most I would think would be ripped from existing CD's. I've spent £50 on iTunes over the years, not that many tracks.

Not sure about the quality though.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 7, 2009)

AAC is supported on pretty much every music player sold these days. ie. the Zune, Creative Zen, Sony Walkman, and the majority of mobile phones (where AAC support has been around for ages). So, quite frankly, bollocks are you restricted where you play them. AAC also has the advantages of having superior sound quality and is free to license (unlike MP3)


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

Crispy said:


> AAC is supported on pretty much every music player sold these days. ie. the Zune, Creative Zen, Sony Walkman, and the majority of mobile phones (where AAC support has been around for ages). So, quite frankly, bollocks are you restricted where you play them. AAC also has the advantages of having superior sound quality and is free to license (unlike MP3)


Actually, there's tens of millions of phones that won't play AAC files, unlike MP3 which is _far_ more universal.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 7, 2009)

Well, I _was_ counting all the phones in the world, but I kept losing my place. Anyway, there are tens of millions of phones that do. And there are millions of music players that do. It is not an Apple format, it is not a niche format, it is widespread and mainstream.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

Crispy said:


> It is not an Apple format...


Did anyone say it was?


----------



## Crispy (Jan 7, 2009)

editor said:


> Did anyone say it was?


No, nobody did, although some do, sometimes.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 7, 2009)

Kanda said:


> It depends which Editor is out to play on any given day I guess



Yep it's exactly that, I was restrained for a long time with him before thinking screw it no one should have to put up with his shit.


----------



## Kanda (Jan 7, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yep it's exactly that, I was restrained for a long time with him before thinking screw it no one should have to put up with his shit.



Hey! Aparently I haven't got a clue what I am talking about!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 7, 2009)

Kanda said:


> Hey! Aparently I haven't got a clue what I am talking about!



Yep and by long time I mean a good couple years. I'm not the first person to comment on the Ed's mood swings (and I must add having met in a few times I found him very decent and down to earth in real life, with no hint of arsery which added to the puzzlement on here) either.

But anyway, I don't think much else needs to be said on this really...


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

Kid_Eternity;8565110]Yep it's exactly that said:


> Yep and by long time I mean a good couple years. I'm not the first person to comment on the Ed's mood swings (and I must add having met in a few times I found him very decent and down to earth in real life, with no hint of arsery which added to the puzzlement on here) either.


For fuck's sake, get over it.

Topic of this thread is: Apple. Thank you.


----------



## Pie 1 (Jan 7, 2009)

Happy thoughts, people.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 7, 2009)

editor said:


> .*For fuck's sake, get over it.*
> 
> Topic of this thread is: Apple. Thank you.



I was never 'under it'! Just thought it wise to explain, and as usual your selective quoting as missed the key bit at the end of my last post which was yeah let's not talk about this anymore on here...but thanks anyway.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

Your last four posts in this thread:


Kid_Eternity;8563094]-personal attack[/quote][quote=Kid_Eternity;8565110]-personal attack[/quote][quote=Kid_Eternity;8565160]-personal attack[/quote][quote=Kid_Eternity said:


> yet more off topic stuff about me.


The topic of this thread is Apple, not me or my supposed 'moods.'

Here's more details about the new iTunes pricing:


> Effective immediately, Apple has said that the majority of its song library will be available in iTunes Plus, featuring a higher bit-rate of 256 kbps (previously 128 kbps) and without the DRM (Digital Rights Management) that prevents users from playing songs on computer programmes other than iTunes and MP3 players other than iPods.
> 
> Today, eight million of the 10 million songs in the library will be available in this DRM-free format, with the remaining two million due for upgrade in March.
> 
> ...


Nice to be able to download songs straight onto the phone...


----------



## Kanda (Jan 7, 2009)

editor said:


> Nice to be able to download songs straight onto the phone...



Never realised you had to be on WiFi. I was thinking: Eh!! You can do that already!!


----------



## bouncer_the_dog (Jan 7, 2009)

I've bought loads of stuff of iTunes and will be upgrading everything..


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 7, 2009)

editor said:


> Your last four posts in this thread:
> The topic of this thread is Apple, not me or my supposed 'moods.'



Another mood swing!



> Here's more details about the new iTunes pricing:
> Nice to be able to download songs straight onto the phone...



Good move but is there data cap like with podcasts? D/ling the odd tune here and there works great but if you want a whole album...?


----------



## Kanda (Jan 7, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Good move but is there data cap like with podcasts? D/ling the odd tune here and there works great but if you want a whole album...?



It does it tune by tune at the moment.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Another mood swing!


Can you please, * please* stop this now?


----------



## Bob_the_lost (Jan 7, 2009)




----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 7, 2009)

Sunray said:


> If you don't want it don't buy it?  I know I'm not going to its a two grand laptop?  I like it because its a brave decision to use new manufacturing techniques and technology like they have.  Far too much generic off the shelf low tech components used in new technology these days.  Li-polymer batteries were invented over 5 years ago, nobody uses them because they are too cautious and instead reached for the Li-Ion off the shelf ones instead.



So it's new technology - so fucking what?  By having a non removable battery it leaves you with a product that is less useful and flexible as one with older technology.  Why couldn't they make it removable?  Even if they were the only company to make replacements and charged you the earth for them, at least you'd have the option.



> As for their IEEE1394b implementation. Apple know how to design decent hardware. They actually have a very long history of making reliable kit.
> 
> What's happened is that Apple implements its IEEE1394b interface to specification (its a international standard ratified in 2002) .  Unfortunately the so called 'Pro' (I hate that moniker, don't get 'Pro' computer hardware do you?) didn't implement their IEEE1394a interface properly.  Old slack tolerant FW400 spec didn't mind.  Now its being implemented strictly because the tolerances are much tighter which is what the spec said do from day one, to ensure compatibility.  Suddenly all that 'Pro' gear producers are left red faced, prolly sourced their firewire interface from Mr Wong in some back street in Taipei.  So they blame Apple and hope nobody runs a IEEE1394a spec test against their kit.
> 
> As part developer of the IEEE1394 standard I can, with a high degree of certainty, say that Apples stuff will meet their own specification.



But Apple have historically had a huge base of clients in the pro audio/video market, areas traditionally supplied by lots of small companies making specialized kit. With this "update" they are crapping on them from a great height.  As ever it's Apples way, or fuck off.

They make lovely kit sometimes, but as a company they seemingly show nothing but contempt for their customers.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 7, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So it's new technology - so fucking what?  By having a non removable battery it leaves you with a product that is less useful and flexible as one with older technology.  Why couldn't they make it removable?  Even if they were the only company to make replacements and charged you the earth for them, at least you'd have the option.



They didn't make it removable because if they don't want to, they don't have to, its their laptop.  Its not like there isn't plenty of competition if you don't like that decision.



> But Apple have historically had a huge base of clients in the pro audio/video market, areas traditionally supplied by lots of small companies making specialized kit. With this "update" they are crapping on them from a great height.  As ever it's Apples way, or fuck off.
> 
> They make lovely kit sometimes, but as a company they seemingly show nothing but contempt for their customers.



No its the standard which everyone should follow and is 5 years old now.  Its not like that community didn't see it coming.  All Apple have done is implement that standard correctly.  What else can they do exactly?

That shoddy kit should have implemented the standard like it says in the documentation. It would still work.  That standard now goes up to 3.2Gb with optical connections. The change in connector between 400 and 800 is to prevent people trying to use FW800 on a FW400 cable which may or may not work.  The 3 extra wires are just extra ground shielding.

Firewire is actually a bit of a dead standard, certainly in the computing world.  Ethernet is faster and cheaper and 10Gb is on the horizon for cat6e, which is 3 times firewires best effort for optical.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 7, 2009)

Sunray said:


> They didn't make it removable because if they don't want to, they don't have to, its their laptop.  Its not like there isn't plenty of competition if you don't like that decision.



It may be their decision, but it's a bloody strange one.  Why have an upgrade that makes your product less useful?




> What else can they do exactly?



Know who their clients are and work with them, rather than against them?


----------



## johnnymarrsbars (Jan 7, 2009)

editor said:


> Interesting that Lenova managed to offer a _removable_ Li-Polymer battery to their (superb) X300 laptop.



the x300 is sick, i'll agree. i love thinkpads, and if i were to buy a pc laptop the only one i'd consider would be a thinkpad.

i just can't live without mac os x. windows isn't in the equation at all and i can't be arsed with all the geeky configurations etc of linux.

i just want stuff to 'work'. on a mac, it does.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

johnnymarrsbars said:


> the x300 is sick, i'll agree. i love thinkpads, and if i were to buy a pc laptop the only one i'd consider would be a thinkpad.
> 
> i just can't live without mac os x. windows isn't in the equation at all and i can't be arsed with all the geeky configurations etc of linux.
> 
> i just want stuff to 'work'. on a mac, it does.


Each to their own of course, but when it comes to Apple's super slick styling vs the sheer functionality of Thinkpads, it's IBM/Lenova all the way for me (although I'd be happy to own either!).

Come to think of it, I rather like the fact that ThinkPads look so dull, mean and business like.


----------



## johnnymarrsbars (Jan 7, 2009)

Kanda said:


> Sod paying the 20p though, just write them to CD and re-rip them.



^this


----------



## Sunray (Jan 7, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> It may be their decision, but it's a bloody strange one.  Why have an upgrade that makes your product less useful?



It does give you 8 hours on a dual core laptop?  Useful to their customers I would assume. 



> Know who their clients are and work with them, rather than against them?



Eh?  I sense a lack of understanding here? Its a standard, ratified by the IEEE.   Its been around for ages, those clients should have implemented it properly.  All Apple can do is say implement the standard as defined in the standards document.  If they try to fix it for some people by tweaking, other people, who did implement it correctly and are happily working, suddenly stop working. 

Wi-fi is a IEEE standard, people seem to be able to implement that correctly, I've never had a Wifi device not connect to a wifi router.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 7, 2009)

Sunray said:


> It does give you 8 hours on a dual core laptop?  Useful to their customers I would assume.



And when that runs out, you're fucked.

However you want to look at it, a non removable battery on a bit of kit aimed at a professional market is utter shite.


----------



## Kanda (Jan 7, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> *And when that runs out, you're fucked.*
> 
> However you want to look at it, a non removable battery on a bit of kit aimed at a professional market is utter shite.



You could plug it in yanno...


----------



## Crispy (Jan 7, 2009)

Does anyone here own a spare laptop battery?
Does anyone know someone who owns a spare laptop battery?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 7, 2009)

Kanda said:


> You could plug it in yanno...



Bit hard when you're in the middle of a field


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 7, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Does anyone here own a spare laptop battery?



Yep


----------



## tarannau (Jan 7, 2009)

Nope. Only had too when a work laptop had an inutterably shite battery to begin with. Two shit battery packs instead of one half decent one.

I have, however, replaced the dying battery quickly on my MBP.  The convenience was nice, but I don't think it's the deal breaker that some are making it out to be.

I've worked plenty with the target market too mind. It's generally not road warriors with multiple batteries that I see with 17MB's, more account directors liking presentation real estate, plugged in studio musicians and the odd completionist full-spec type.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Does anyone here own a spare laptop battery?
> Does anyone know someone who owns a spare laptop battery?


Me! I used to work on my flights to the States, so always carried a spare to keep me going (Photoshop burns through battery life).

The immense battery life of the new MacBook would be no good to me though, because you'd never be able to _open_ the huge beast, let alone work on it, in an economy class seat. Come to think of it, you'd be hard pressed to open it in premium economy too!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 7, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Does anyone here own a spare laptop battery?
> Does anyone know someone who owns a spare laptop battery?



Nope. Never have, not known anyone to either and that include mac own professional designers and photographer friends.


----------



## paolo (Jan 7, 2009)

I had a couple for my old VAIO... mainly for watching DVDs on long journeys.


----------



## pk (Jan 7, 2009)

I use my two MPB's and before that my Powerbook all over the world, in field locations and random places, racked up more airmiles in the last 12 months than in the rest of my life put together, spent nearly 5 months abroad all together, working over in several European countries and South America. Nearly qualified for tax exemption.

And my poor machines are tasked with the most processor intensive activity that is possible to put them through, on a daily basis.

And no - I do not have a spare battery for any of my laptops.


----------



## pk (Jan 7, 2009)

editor said:


> Me! I used to work on my flights to the States, so always carried a spare to keep me going (Photoshop burns through battery life).
> 
> The immense battery life of the new MacBook would be no good to me though, because you'd never be able to _open_ the huge beast, let alone work on it, in an economy class seat. Come to think of it, you'd be hard pressed to open it in premium economy too!



That's another daft exaggeration though isn't it Editor, because there is no airline in the world with less than 15.47 inches between each armrest, which is the width of the 17" Macbook Pro.

In fact I would challenge you to find any airline using seats with less than 16.5 inches between armrests. Most are 18 inches.

You do realise that the 17" is actually the diagonal measurement of the screen, right?


----------



## cybertect (Jan 7, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It would have been nice to hear about Snow Leopard but they never do "work in progress" updates at these things. It's always things which are ready right then or within a few weeks.



IIRC, the only time they do show 'work in progress' is at Developer conferences.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2009)

pk said:


> That's another daft exaggeration though isn't it Editor, because there is no airline in the world with less than 15.47 inches between each armrest, which is the width of the 17" Macbook Pro.
> 
> In fact I would challenge you to find any airline using seats with less than 16.5 inches between armrests. Most are 18 inches.


Oh God, Here he is defending the good Mac cause no matter what.

Look, _I'm not criticising the Mac_, but just stating the simple fact it would be nigh on impossible to work with any - yes _*any*_ - laptop of that size in the small confines of your average cheapo TransAtlantic seat.

I travelled a lot to the US and the lack of working space was a factor I had to consider when buying a laptop for work. In fact, I even struggled to work on my Sony with its 11" screen if the person in front reclined their seat. 

Here. Look. People talking about the same thing:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/travellog/2007/09/reclining_seat_wars_1.html



> If you are in premium economy or higher then there's probably enough space to use a 15" notebook (and you might have a power socket). In economy / cattle class, the most critical factor is whether or not the seat in front is upright. If it is, then you *might* be able to open the notebook's screen to a vertical position. However, if the optimum viewing angle is with the screen tilted away from you then you will need to have the notebook half way off the front of the tray table and almost touching you. If the person in front decides to recline their seat while you are using the computer, watch out.
> 
> On my last flight I watched someone using a 12" notebook with difficulty. That was half off the tray table since the seat in front was partly reclined.
> 
> ...



So no 'exaggeration', 'daft 'or otherwise. Just a simple statement of fact. Big laptops are very hard to work with in a small seat on a plane.


----------



## pk (Jan 7, 2009)

Blimey. Can't say I've had a problem myself. 
I got long legs so I just plonk it on my lap.


----------



## Kanda (Jan 7, 2009)

To be honest, I just got back from a long shitty US Airways Economy flight and had no probs with my 17" Laptop...  I always use it on flights...


----------



## snadge (Jan 7, 2009)

This thread is .

Funny as fuck, you're all barking, get a grip you cunts.

FFS arguing about the width of airline seats.....


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 7, 2009)

snadge said:


> This thread is .
> 
> Funny as fuck, you're all barking, get a grip you cunts.
> 
> FFS arguing about the width of airline seats.....





It's fucking comedy gold!


----------



## Pie 1 (Jan 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Does anyone here own a spare laptop battery?
> Does anyone know someone who owns a spare laptop battery?



Two.
(never used one of them though - it's more for emergency back up)


----------



## Pie 1 (Jan 8, 2009)

editor said:


> The immense battery life of the new MacBook would be no good to me though, because you'd never be able to _open_ the huge beast, let alone work on it, in an economy class seat. Come to think of it, you'd be hard pressed to open it in premium economy too!





I've worked on my 17" perfectly comfortably in business & fine, though not as comfortably, in economy many times.

(anyway I'm off snowboarding for the w/end now - have fun kids!  )


----------



## pk (Jan 8, 2009)

Meanwhile... The rumour mill is speculating on whether the real keynote will be delivered on 28th Jan by Jobs.

Significance of the date being Apple's 25th anniversary...


----------



## Crispy (Jan 8, 2009)

And the songs sung by bennet at the end
"The best is yet to come"
"I left my heart in san francisco"

Hmmmmmm,mmmmmmm,mmmmmm


----------



## Structaural (Jan 8, 2009)

bouncer_the_dog said:


> I've bought loads of stuff of iTunes and will be upgrading everything..



They reckon it'll take until about April to 'upgrade' all the songs on iTunes. 

If I ever bought something from iTunes I used to trash them and redownload from a torrent site anyway as I prefer a 320kb or flac file without any DRM. Quite enjoying an old hip-hop Sergio Mendes album (Timeless) I bought last night but damn, it's not on What.cd...

I'm not sure it's a good thing that Apple have won the no-DRM battle as it means they've managed to get away with making the bulk of the profit from selling tunes, which means the artists lose out again. Though the record companies can also be blamed for that as they wouldn't budge either...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 8, 2009)

pk said:


> Meanwhile... The rumour mill is speculating on whether the real keynote will be delivered on 28th Jan by Jobs.
> 
> Significance of the date being Apple's 25th anniversary...



Interesting...


----------



## pk (Jan 8, 2009)

At the very least Snow Leopard (shit name) will be offered soon...


----------



## Crispy (Jan 8, 2009)

Yeah, looking forward to that. Speed boosts are always nice


----------



## editor (Jan 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> And the songs sung by bennet at the end
> "The best is yet to come"
> "I left my heart in san francisco"
> 
> Hmmmmmm,mmmmmmm,mmmmmm


You really have to hand it to Apple how they can constantly build up such expectations and hype. No other company comes close when it comes to building up excitement around their products.

After the last launch - which was universally declared an anti-climax by even the staunchest fanboys - huge expectations are building and excited rumours are already circulating, seemingly based on nothing more than Tony Bennett's lyrics!


----------



## ovaltina (Jan 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Does anyone here own a spare laptop battery?
> Does anyone know someone who owns a spare laptop battery?



I have - which gave me about seven hours on a Thinkpad X31, enough to do a whole day's work when I was out of the office but on a tight deadline.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 8, 2009)

editor said:


> You really have to hand it to Apple how they can constantly build up such expectations and hype. No other company comes close when it comes to building up excitement around their products.
> 
> After the last launch - which was universally declared an anti-climax by even the staunchest fanboys - huge expectations are building and excited rumours are already circulating, seemingly based on nothing more than Tony Bennett's lyrics!


Well, that coupled with the mac's 25th anniversary coming up.
And tbf, the company itself does very little hyping - a rabid press does all that for it


----------



## editor (Jan 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Well, that coupled with the mac's 25th anniversary coming up.
> And tbf, the company itself does very little hyping - a rabid press does all that for it


Did they release anything special on their 15th and 20th anniversaries? 

Have to say it would seem mad in today's cut-throat environment to hold back on some killer technology for the sake of sentimentality, no?


----------



## Crispy (Jan 8, 2009)

Yeah, the 20th anniversary mac in 1999 (note that was the company's anniversary, not the mac)






please note that my current expectations are currently at 'modestly raised eyebrows' level, nothing more.


----------



## editor (Jan 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Yeah, the 20th anniversary mac in 1999 (note that was the company's anniversary, not the mac)


WTF is that weird thing?! What's covering the screen?

Would I be correct in assuming that whatever it was, it was not exactly a big hit?


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 8, 2009)

I don't think it's likely.

Mr Jobs isn't the sentimental type.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-01/ff_mac


----------



## Crispy (Jan 8, 2009)

Nothing covers the screen, that's a screensaver. Below is a horizontal-axis CD drive. It has a built in TV tuner. The big lumpy thing is a Bass bin and power supply. It was not a very good spec, and it was horribly overpriced ($7500!!) Only 12000 were made.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 8, 2009)

editor said:


> WTF is that weird thing?! What's covering the screen?


 That's not covering the screen, it's below the screen.
LCDs were expensive in 1997


editor said:


> Would I be correct in assuming that whatever it was, it was not exactly a big hit?


At $7,499, I don't think it was every destined for a huge market.

It was before Jobs returned to Apple, and I suspect he wouldn't be interested in repeating it.


----------



## Structaural (Jan 8, 2009)

pk said:


> At the very least Snow Leopard (shit name) will be offered soon...



I'm quite looking forward to that as a multicore user... I'd be interested if they effectively utilise the GPUs for extra power which they're claiming to do with OpenCL.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 8, 2009)

Only if the programmer takes advantage of it. I suspect quicktime and other apple systems will use openCL in snow leopard, but everyone else will be playing catchup


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 8, 2009)

Lazy Llama said:


> I don't think it's likely.
> 
> Mr Jobs isn't the sentimental type.
> 
> http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-01/ff_mac



He doesn't have to be but if the fans are and the marketing people can use it they will. Holding off for a few weeks with something new will hardly lose them any ground despite how cut throat the tech industry maybe...


----------



## Structaural (Jan 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Only if the programmer takes advantage of it. I suspect quicktime and other apple systems will use openCL in snow leopard, but everyone else will be playing catchup



Yeah Adobe, for one, are dragging their feet where os x is concerned. Luckily for me Maxon are pretty up there with the cutting edge stuff (probably the only fully 64-bit app out there other than Lightroom), so they'll utilise some of it hopefully, especially as Cinema4D is so processor intensive.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 8, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> He doesn't have to be but if the fans are and the marketing people can use it they will. Holding off for a few weeks with something new will hardly lose them any ground despite how cut throat the tech industry maybe...


Quite. I'm not expecting a special model or anything, just some product updates. Maybe.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Quite. I'm not expecting a special model or anything, just some product updates. Maybe.



Me either, I reckon an iPod/iPhone update of some kind (iPhone HD with 64gb of storage and a better camera with video recording?)...


----------



## Structaural (Jan 8, 2009)

I think there might be some Mac Pro and Mac mini updates too...


----------



## paolo (Jan 8, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Me either, I reckon an iPod/iPhone update of some kind (iPhone HD with 64gb of storage and a better camera with video recording?)...



I think that's very optimistic


----------



## Bob_the_lost (Jan 8, 2009)

The camera could be upgraded pretty easily, the cost of the parts isn't a huge one and the price of them is dropping like a rock, 75% last year and overcapacity in manufacturing means they could bump it up a bit and not be selling themselves down the river.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 8, 2009)

paolo999 said:


> I think that's very optimistic



Yep but you know if you're gonna wish for something it may as well be cool!


----------



## pk (Jan 8, 2009)

I reckon an Apple TV/iPhone unit with streaming TV controls, dial up your viewing schedules would be a winner... Apple need more Apple TV subscribers and a new mobile product to tie in iTunes with Apple TV would be a must-have gadget for many.


----------



## asbestos (Jan 8, 2009)

This is probably as old as the hills and already been posted here, but just incase anyone missed it.



http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary


----------



## dweller (Jan 8, 2009)

asbestos said:


> This is probably as old as the hills and already been posted here, but just incase anyone missed it.
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary



I heard about this video. its very well done. they've got the mac shop look down to a tee.


----------



## editor (Jan 14, 2009)

Update on the MacBook Pro 17" battery. It'll cost a cool £139 to replace and users can get a same-day service provided they pre-book at an Apple Store or mail it off for a  3-4 business day turnaround. I can't imagine I'd ever want to mail off a laptop of mine stuffed full of my personal data, mind.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/245408/apple-puts-price-on-macbook-pro-battery-replacement.html


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 14, 2009)

Relative to the £97 for a standard removable Macbook Pro 15" battery, that's not a bad price for the new battery, especially considering it includes fitting.

You could always wipe the machine before you sent it off if you were that paranoid. Or use FileVault to encrypt your home folder.


----------



## editor (Jan 14, 2009)

Lazy Llama said:


> Relative to the £97 for a standard removable Macbook Pro 15" battery, that's not a bad price for the new battery, especially considering it includes fitting.
> 
> You could always wipe the machine before you sent it off if you were that paranoid. Or use FileVault to encrypt your home folder.


Would you fancy wiping a year's worth of apps, personal info and work off a laptop you've had for a year or so? And then reinstalling the whole lot all over again, hoping nothing's been lost or corrupted in the process (assuming the laptop isn't lost in transit).

Not me, thanks.

I can get a replacement battery for my ThinkPad cost for £24, btw. No wiping, reinstalling, sending off, encrypting  or booking appointments for trips into shops needed. Sounds positively _futuristic_ by comparison, doesn't it?


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 14, 2009)

editor said:


> Would you fancy wiping a year's worth of apps, personal info and work off a laptop you've had for a year or so? And then reinstalling the whole lot all over again, hoping nothing's been lost or corrupted in the process (assuming the laptop isn't lost in transit).



I do tend to have a backup of my laptop. You never know when it's going to get stolen, HD die etc.

So I'd boot my OS disk, select "Restore from Time Machine" and leave it to it. A few hours later, it's all back, exactly as it was last time I did a backup (which is whenever I'm home; Time Machine will backup every hour as soon as I plug the USB HD in).

I really hope you're not wandering around with a laptop you have no _restorable_ backup for? 



> I can get a replacement battery for my ThinkPad cost for £24, btw. No wiping, reinstalling, sending off, encrypting  or booking appointments for trips into shops needed. Sounds positively _futuristic_ by comparison, doesn't it?


And I can do the same for my two Powerbooks, MacBook and MacBook Pro. 

The MBP 17" battery is supposed to take 3 times as many charges as a standard one, and each charge lasts twice the time that most laptop batteries manage. So 1 MBP17 battery = 6 normal ones. So you'd be quids in: 6x£24 = £144

So when you going to the Apple Store for a whooping session?


----------



## Crispy (Jan 14, 2009)

editor said:


> Would you fancy wiping a year's worth of apps, personal info and work off a laptop you've had for a year or so? And then reinstalling the whole lot all over again, hoping nothing's been lost or corrupted in the process



Utter piece of piss with Time Machine. I did this with sparrow's macbook in an evening. Completely painless.


----------



## elbows (Jan 14, 2009)

Yeah I really like how easy it is to backup macs, and boot from external firewire hard drives.

As for the battery, if it lasts 5 years like they claim, it wouldnt be much of an issue for me.

The new 17" machine is growing on me, if I hadnt been put on short-time at work due to bad cashflow, Id be considering getting one, especially as I remembered that I get a discount on a new mac due to being in their developer program. (not that I actually get round to developing anything other than strange quartz compositions, I did it to get early preview of Snow Leopard).


----------



## RaverDrew (Jan 14, 2009)

It's such a piece of piss to replace a harddrive from a macbook, that I'd just remove it and store it somewhere safe before sending it off for a replacement battery.


----------



## editor (Jan 14, 2009)

News breaking now:

*Steve Jobs is taking a leave of absence from Apple, due to health reasons*
_CNBC and others are reporting that Apple has issued a statement saying that Steve Jobs is taking a leave of absence due to health reasons. Apparently Steve Jobs sent out a letter to Apple employees today saying that his health problems are "more complex" than he at first thought, and that he looks forward to seeing them all this summer. Steve will be around for major strategic decisions, and Tim Cook will take over the day-to-day in his absence._
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/14/steve-jobs-is-taking-a-leave-of-absence-from-apple-due-to-healt/

Watch those shares plummet.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 14, 2009)

Yeah, word went out on Twitter just now... sell sell sell!


----------



## editor (Jan 14, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Yeah, word went out on Twitter just now... sell sell sell!


Already falling:


> US STOCKS-Futures fall on Apple news on CEO's medical leave
> 
> The news was likely to be a major headwind for the market on Thursday and was likely to fuel investor jitters at the start of trading in Asia.        * Nasdaq stock index futures fell as much as 16 points. Apple shares were halted in after-hours.
> 
> http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUKN1448258520090114?symbol=AAPL.O


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 14, 2009)

Out of interest I took a look on Google Finance, which I'd never bothered visiting before, and look at all the stuff you get!

http://finance.google.co.uk/finance?q=NASDAQ:AAPL

Real-time prices, blogs, news, discussions... blimey.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 14, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Out of interest I took a look on Google Finance, which I'd never bothered visiting before, and look at all the stuff you get!
> 
> http://finance.google.co.uk/finance?q=NASDAQ:AAPL
> 
> Real-time prices, blogs, news, discussions... blimey.



There's a couple of really good finance/stock apps for the G1 that (I assume, I don't understand any of it ) tie in to all that data.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 14, 2009)

There are some for iphonetouch as well; in fact it comes with one built in. Christ knows whether they're any good. But as a starting point for information about a company, it's a hell of a resource. I might start looking there a bit more.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 14, 2009)

Jesus. That company's stock is gonna plummet hard if the guys pops his cloggs...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 14, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Utter piece of piss with Time Machine. I did this with sparrow's macbook in an evening. Completely painless.



Also enabling FileVault is very easy, and once it's done it's completely transparent. I enabled it on my MBP after my Powerbook got nicked, and when you think about it, it's amazing that you can whang about gigs of DV source and it's all AES encrypted and decrypted without you having to care.


----------



## editor (Jan 14, 2009)

The extra-close control enjoyed by Jobs at Apple's has always been the company's Achilles heel. If he sneezes, the whole company gets a cold.


----------



## editor (Jan 14, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Also enabling FileVault is very easy, and once it's done it's completely transparent. I enabled it on my MBP after my Powerbook got nicked, and when you think about it, it's amazing that you can whang about gigs of DV source and it's all AES encrypted and decrypted without you having to care.


But, I'm sure you will agree, it's still a whole lot of fannying around compared to just swapping a battery at home. Or on the road.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 14, 2009)

Heh my Twitter feed just lit up with Jobs related posts. The new world, even when sad news, is pretty crazy stuff...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 14, 2009)

editor said:


> But, I'm sure you will agree, it's still a whole lot of fannying around compared to just swapping a battery at home. Or on the road.



Well, having to send something in to change the battery is. (Enabling Filevault isn't, you just click a slider to "on".)


----------



## editor (Jan 14, 2009)

Apple stocks are down 7.8% in after sales trading, and are likely to plummet tomorrow.

It's a fucking cruel and harsh world in finance.


----------



## metalguru (Jan 14, 2009)

And irrational...


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 14, 2009)

Good time to buy then. 

Jonathan Ive is very well, they have pots of money, not to mention obscene profits.

Personally, I don't think Apple would lose their way without Jobs, and they're in a hugely strong position.


----------



## editor (Jan 14, 2009)

Here's what Jobs said:





> Team,
> 
> I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.
> 
> ...


----------



## cliche guevara (Jan 14, 2009)

Hope he's OK. No matter how much of a pompous cock he can come across, he's a genius businessman and I wouldn't wish ill health on anyone.


----------



## editor (Jan 14, 2009)

Indeed. He's a true computer pioneer.


----------



## Padcore (Jan 14, 2009)

cliche guevara said:


> Hope he's OK. No matter how much of a pompous cock he can come across, he's a genius businessman and I wouldn't wish ill health on anyone.



Osama Bin Laden?

Get well soon Steve.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 15, 2009)

editor said:


> The extra-close control enjoyed by Jobs at Apple's has always been the company's Achilles heel. If he sneezes, the whole company gets a cold.



I think that is entirely down to past performance.   

Apple with Steve = Very profitable innovative company
Apple without him = Inexorably slow decent into nothingness
Apple gets him back = Magically Recovers

Share holders can be forgiven for linking Apple to Steve Jobs.


----------



## editor (Jan 15, 2009)

Apple  stocks have substantially dropped:
http://finance.google.co.uk/finance?q=NASDAQ:AAPL


----------



## Crispy (Jan 15, 2009)

Good time to buy.


----------



## Kanda (Jan 15, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Good time to buy.



Hmm, not really, not yet.

I'd wait for a bit of a fall and some sign he'll be back or some inovative new product.


----------



## editor (Jan 15, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Good time to buy.


Don't think so, to be honest.  That's why the price is dropping.


----------



## Kanda (Jan 15, 2009)

All markets are dropping at the moment. This not neccesarily all down to Jobs.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 15, 2009)

editor said:


> Don't think so, to be honest.  That's why the price is dropping.


Financial results are in soon, the price will go back up.


----------



## Kanda (Jan 15, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Financial results are in soon, the price will go back up.



Problem is their products ARE expensive for a recession environment. All the 30 somethings are only cash rich when they have a job. Also Apple has really f-cked up with the announcements of this illness. As in should have been more honest earlier on. Difficult to trust anything they say in next year or so.

Earnings are announced on 21st Jan. They've got 15bn in cash on the books too!!!


----------



## Crispy (Jan 15, 2009)

Ignore me, I'm not a financial analyst


----------



## middle C (Jan 15, 2009)

when is snow leopard coming out?  my mac is dead and i need a new machine.  thinking to buy very soon (NOW!)  should i wait?


----------



## editor (Jan 15, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Ignore me, I'm not a financial analyst


But you were just saying that it was a 'good time to buy Apple stocks' so I went out and shifted the entire urban savings account into Apple!

  

*prays for Jobs.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 15, 2009)

middle C said:


> when is snow leopard coming out?  my mac is dead and i need a new machine.  thinking to buy very soon (NOW!)  should i wait?


No clue, but probably middle of the year. You can always install it later (and for free - there's no penalty or barrier to installing pirate copies of OSX, if your conscience permits)


----------



## middle C (Jan 15, 2009)

Crispy said:


> No clue, but probably middle of the year. You can always install it later (and for free - there's no penalty or barrier to installing pirate copies of OSX, if your conscience permits)



won't apple offer a free upgrade?


----------



## middle C (Jan 15, 2009)

did macworld said anything on it?  (i not followed macworld 2009)


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## Crispy (Jan 15, 2009)

middle C said:


> won't apple offer a free upgrade?


The time window is usually pretty narrow - a matter of weeks. If you need a new computer now, buy one now. Sleopard won't be out for a while. My guess is that it'll be cheaper than previous OSX upgrades due to the relative lack of outward features. But that's just a guess.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 15, 2009)

editor said:


> the entire urban savings account



All £4.20 of it


----------



## middle C (Jan 15, 2009)

Crispy said:


> The time window is usually pretty narrow - a matter of weeks. If you need a new computer now, *buy one now*. Sleopard won't be out for a while. My guess is that it'll be cheaper than previous OSX upgrades due to the relative lack of outward features. But that's just a guess.



'buy one now' - i'd like that!


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2009)

middle C said:


> did macworld said anything on it?  (i not followed macworld 2009)



No. There were rumors before macworld that Snow Leopard might be out earlier than expected, for example March, but this was not mentioned at Macworld. It could still come out much earlier than June, but I wouldnt bank on it.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 15, 2009)

Well if we're talking rational economics, it'd be better to wait till he dies then buy...


----------



## Kanda (Jan 15, 2009)

Jobs’s Pancreas May Be Removed After Complications:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aVFw9xGqpxkE&refer=home


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## Kanda (Jan 15, 2009)

editor said:


> The extra-close control enjoyed by Jobs at Apple's has always been the company's Achilles heel. If he sneezes, the whole company gets a cold.



Interesting article: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a4yJ3mqvYDRo&refer=home


----------



## editor (Jan 15, 2009)

Crispy said:


> The time window is usually pretty narrow - a matter of weeks. If you need a new computer now, buy one now.


Buy the shares now! Buy a new computer now!

Crispy never stops!


----------



## middle C (Jan 15, 2009)

i'm at the store waiting on my mac to be upgraded with memories atm.
why the hell the apple store is such a chaos?!


----------



## Crispy (Jan 15, 2009)

I know more about computers than I do about stocks and shares

Is your mac fairly recent? You don't need the store to help you (and you'll get ripped off for the RAM too)


----------



## middle C (Jan 15, 2009)

i'm getting a new one.  and they're installing the RAM for me.
hell, i already paid.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 15, 2009)

fair doos


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## Kanda (Jan 21, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Good time to buy.



You'd be about 9 ish % down by now  Possibly more but I can't be arsed to tote it all up


----------



## editor (Jan 21, 2009)

Kanda said:


> You'd be about 9 ish % down by now  Possibly more but I can't be arsed to tote it all up


If only I'd bought some Palm shares last month! Fucking Bono made a mint.


----------



## editor (Jan 21, 2009)

Doncha' just love big business?





> SEC begins investigation into Apple / Jobs health disclosure
> 
> File this one under “duh”. With all of the commotion caused by Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ announcement earlier this month, it was only a matter of time before the SEC began looking into the matter. For those of you who have been living with the Fraggles for the past few months, allow us to recap the situation in one short series of sentence fragments: Jobs was sick. Apple denied Jobs was sick. Jobs admitted he was sick. As Stevo plays such an integral role in all things Apple, it’s a no-brainer that investors deserved to know what was going on.The question is, did Apple do anything illegal?
> 
> ...


----------



## lozenge (Jan 21, 2009)

White MacBook got a sly upgrade today (surprise surprise)  
http://arstechnica.com/journals/app...k-gets-a-spec-bump-adds-nvidia-9400m-graphics
nothing about it on the uk site yet though.


----------



## Kanda (Jan 22, 2009)

Kanda said:


> You'd be about 9 ish % down by now  Possibly more but I can't be arsed to tote it all up



They bounced back 10% overnight so you'd be flat by now


----------



## Crispy (Jan 22, 2009)

Best quarterly revenue ever did that.
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/01/21/apple-reports-q1-results-10-17b-revenue-1-78-profit-per-share/


----------



## tarannau (Jan 22, 2009)

Yep. Early days, but Apple's in a healthy position despite the recession, with much needed updates to the desktop lines on the way. Snow Leopard and the eventual release of 64bit CS should provide good drivers to upgrade


----------



## Grobelaar (Jan 22, 2009)

lozenge said:


> White MacBook got a sly upgrade today (surprise surprise)
> http://arstechnica.com/journals/app...k-gets-a-spec-bump-adds-nvidia-9400m-graphics
> nothing about it on the uk site yet though.



how about canning it's ass - my missus MacBook case cracked twice, then it cracked a third time just outside of warranty. From anecdotal evidence online they'd probably fix it, but it's just a ballache - 

Go on-line, wait for an appointment slot, go down to the shop - wait about for a concierge to tell you to wait about to get patronised by some Gap wearing, smugfaced 'Genius'. Fill in forms, hand over machine, get told probably be ready in up to a week, head home, get called on mobile while halfway home to be told its ready to pick up, turn around go back, wait for a concierge to tell you to wait to get patronised by some Gap wearing, smugfaced 'Genius' fill in more forms, get machine back, go home - wait for fourth and fifth deterioration of the plastic case...

When I heard that they were doing Alu MacBooks I though hooray, but then you realise that Apple the money grabbing bastards can't cut into their precious margins to make an entry level computer that is even remotely affordable in comparison to their competition, so the dodgy placcy case remains in the range...

RANT ENDS


----------



## Crispy (Jan 22, 2009)

I reckon we'll see a cheaper - lower specced - mac (book? mini?) once snow leopard's out, with all its space-saving and speed optimisation.


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2009)

The rumours of an Apple netbook won't go away, despite all the denials:





> Apple has appeared to dismiss the idea of an Apple netbook, with acting-CEO Tim Cook saying netbooks have "hardware that's much less powerful than what customers want," with "cramped keyboards" and "small displays." He's summed up Apple's attitude to netbooks by saying: "We think the products there are inferior."
> 
> 
> That's been interpreted by some reporters as a 'dismissal'. To me, that's the sound of Apple interestedly rubbing its hands together.
> ...


I reckon Apple could put together a really desirable netbook. If they tie it in with iTunes video/music streaming/downloads they could haul in a load of loyal users, much like the iPhone benefited massively from their iPod user base.

There's certainly a massive demand for Apple to produce a netbook, and I'm sure they'll do a better job than Sony's over priced effort.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2009)

Well Im pretty sure they will do something else with multitouch one day, so although it still seems unlikely for several reasons, I dont rule out some form of tablet in future.


----------



## Grobelaar (Jan 22, 2009)

I was thinking about this and I'm going to hazard a guess that I wonder if Apple don't have a sort high-level ergonomic view point of new computing products...

Namely - how big is it and how does the person carry it around.

A netbook is not small enough to fit in pocket, so it must be carried in a bag, if you must carry a bag then that instantly means a different class of object - ie an ultraportable.

Apple did something the size of Netbook - it was called a Newton and it wasn't very successful.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 22, 2009)

I've seen umpteen posts by tech journos saying "surely Apple _must_ make a netbook, look, everyone else is". What I've not seen is any indication that Apple _are_ planning to make one. It's wishful thinking or by people who don't understand the market, often the same who've also said "surely Apple _must_ make a low-price machine, look, PCs are so much cheaper" for the last X years.

I'd love it if they did but I think the absolute best that can be hoped for is a smaller addition to the Macbook range, say, 10". They could maintain performance at 10". It wouldn't be cheap either.


----------



## paolo (Jan 22, 2009)

Grob: History correction: The Newton wasn't really comparable to a netbook, either in size or function. Perhaps the most notable thing (IMHO) was that it gave birth to Palm, who executed much of the idea, in a properly usable and affordable way.


----------



## Grobelaar (Jan 23, 2009)

paolo999 said:


> Grob: History correction: The Newton wasn't really comparable to a netbook, either in size...



Err yes it was...

Newton 2000/2100 = 211 x 120 x 28
Asus Eee PC = 225 x 160 x 32

Sure the Newton is a tablet and a Netbook is a Clamshell - my point is that from a transportation point of view they sit in pretty much the same size category - too big for a pocket, doesn't take full advantage of needing a bag. Throw in the Newton's add on keyboard and accompanying case aor look at the educational eMate and has the an identical clamshell set up.

The Newton at least had the advantage of being a tablet.


----------



## editor (Jan 23, 2009)

You're pushing it to describe the Newton as a netbook. It was a PDA.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 23, 2009)

Yep. Not a general purpose computer at all - it was a specialised device with interface and software to match. Did some things that modern PDAs still don't do, as well.

(ie. write "meeting with Allen, fri 4pm" and it would pop up a dialog with it's best guess about what you meant by 'allen' and 'friday' and then put the event in your calendar. It was completely pen-centric)


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 23, 2009)

Crispy said:


> (ie. write "meeting with Allen, fri 4pm" and it would pop up a dialog with it's best guess about what you meant by 'allen' and 'friday' and then put the event in your calendar. It was completely pen-centric)



http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cebKo56N6VM&feature=related

(can't find it in english )


----------



## editor (Jan 23, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Yep. Not a general purpose computer at all - it was a specialised device with interface and software to match. Did some things that modern PDAs still don't do, as well.
> 
> (ie. write "meeting with Allen, fri 4pm" and it would pop up a dialog with it's best guess about what you meant by 'allen' and 'friday' and then put the event in your calendar. It was completely pen-centric)


There's an app for the Palm that does that.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 23, 2009)

Sad thing is, in the final models, the recognition was pretty good. But the 1st version was utter shite and that tarnished the product's image forever.


----------



## editor (Jan 23, 2009)

There sure are some cunts out there:

_"Hoaxers give Steve Jobs a heart attack 10:47AM, Friday 23rd January 2009
A Wired news story claiming that Apple boss Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack has been dismissed as a fake.

The hoaxer exploited a feature on Wired's website, which allowed anyone to upload images on a Wired.com page, thus giving the fake news story a genuine URL and Wired banner.

The fake story was then distributed by email, and was subsequently circulated on services such as Twitter.

Yet, despite its authentic appearance, the fake story lacked credibility in a number of other ways - not least its appalling spelling and grammar."_

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/245898/hoaxers-give-steve-jobs-a-heart-attack.html


----------



## Grobelaar (Jan 23, 2009)

editor said:


> You're pushing it to describe the Newton as a netbook. It was a PDA.



Christ does no one read any posts, I'm talking ergonomics – I’m not comparing the two on features or what their assigned purpose/name was or is. Call it a PDA if you want, its still a portable computer of its day.

Forget the features, small laptops have been around for yonks, somewhat more popular in Japan – I think this particular explosion is driven by price, rather than innovation.

Given their experience on the Newton it’s my belief that Apple look at the Netbook market and think – yeah great, but we’ve done that form factor and it’s a niche market – move on, concentrate efforts on the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Once again you’ll all going to kick off trying to say I’m comparing the Netbook to an iPhone now, which I’m not. I’m simply trying to say if you approach the process from an ergonomic perspective rather than a feature perspective, which I think is more Apple’s approach – then the Netbook simply isn’t a good line for them.


----------



## editor (Jan 23, 2009)

Grobelaar said:


> Christ does no one read any posts, I'm talking ergonomics – I’m not comparing the two on features or what their assigned purpose/name was or is. Call it a PDA if you want, its still a portable computer of its day.


I did read your post, and I don't agree with your claim. The Newton's lineage belongs to PDAs and its ergonomics were _totally different_ to a netbook.


----------



## Grobelaar (Jan 23, 2009)

editor said:


> I did read your post, and I don't agree with your claim. The Newton's lineage belongs to PDAs and its ergonomics were _totally different_ to a netbook.



yet ergonomically it was a million miles from the line of PDA's that it spawned as PDAs evolved so that they were small enough to fit in a pocket.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 23, 2009)

Grobelaar said:


> Christ does no one read any posts, I'm talking ergonomics – I’m not comparing the two on features or what their assigned purpose/name was or is. Call it a PDA if you want, its still a portable computer of its day.
> 
> Forget the features, small laptops have been around for yonks, somewhat more popular in Japan – I think this particular explosion is driven by price, rather than innovation.
> 
> ...



I think I see where you're coming from. I've always seen netbooks, umpc's and tablet pcs as being in the same family of computing in that they're not full blown computers but you compromise for convenience or particular functions.


----------



## editor (Feb 20, 2009)

Not surprisingly, Apple's taking a hit as the recession bites:





> I expect most people suspected sales of Apple's premium-priced computers would come under pressure, given the dreadful state of the US economy, and that seems to be the case. The Wall Street Journal is reporting: "Apple Inc's unit sales of computers through US retail channels fell 6% in January from the same month in 2008, the first monthly decline in three years, according to market-research firm NPD Group."
> 
> 
> NPD analyst Stephen Baker said consumers are becoming more price-sensitive as the economic climate continues to worsen.
> ...


(*thread title edited as it seems a good idea to have a general Apple thread)


----------



## Kanda (Feb 20, 2009)

They've got about 15 bill in the bank.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Mar 3, 2009)

New iMacs, Mac Minis and Mac Pros on the Apple website now.

http://www.apple.com/


----------



## Kanda (Mar 3, 2009)

Yay! 

Been waiting to get a 24" iMac


----------



## Structaural (Mar 3, 2009)

oof, nice MacPro.


----------



## Structaural (Mar 3, 2009)

or not, price-wise.

Also, updates to time capsule, macbook pro 15" and other bits and bobs.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 3, 2009)

I like speccing the most expensive pro tower. 

*£14,340.99 incl. VAT*

Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
32GB (8x4GB)
Mac Pro RAID Card
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
4x NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
Two 18x SuperDrives
Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)
Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)

Plus  aload of software. Nice


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 3, 2009)

Heh, very nice!


----------



## tarannau (Mar 3, 2009)

You have strange habits Mr Crispy. To buy a fully specced tower ready kitted out from Apple is somewhat akin to burning $50 notes, even if the premium they charge for memory and the like is slightly less than it used to be.

A show-off mate's got the last top range 8-core mac and largest cinema display and it's a lovely bit of kit, albeit vastly overpowered for most things This new range looks noticeably faster - if Snow Leopard's is half as optimised as they suggest then these machines should fly.


----------



## editor (Mar 3, 2009)

Those new 24" iMacs look lovely.


----------



## Kanda (Mar 3, 2009)

editor said:


> Those new 24" iMacs look lovely.



I have to walk past the Apple store to get home... the g/f is considering coming to meet me to prevent me being silly


----------



## Lazy Llama (Mar 3, 2009)

Dropping the numeric keypad from the wired keyboard is a bit strange. 

But then again, I never use the keypad anyway, so I won't miss it.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 3, 2009)

keypad is essential for me. I had to trawl ebay to find one of the old-model wireless with the keypad, although the metal ones are very pretty.


----------



## editor (Mar 3, 2009)

Kanda said:


> I have to walk past the Apple store to get home... the g/f is considering coming to meet me to prevent me being silly


They're a great all-in-one combo and there's barely been anything on the PC platform to match their elegance.

It's not for me though: I prefer the flexibility of multiple monitor set-ups and units I can take apart and upgrade at will.


----------



## Bob_the_lost (Mar 3, 2009)

Nice to see the US/EU pricing still going strong. $599 = £499


----------



## Lazy Llama (Mar 3, 2009)

Bob_the_lost said:


> Nice to see the US/EU pricing still going strong. $599 = £499


Not as much difference as it used to be, thanks to the weak pound (US price doesn't include sales tax, UK one does include VAT). 

Still £40 quid more in the UK after a typical sales tax, so just about worth putting one in your bag if you're visiting the States.


----------



## Jasef (Mar 3, 2009)

editor said:


> They're a great all-in-one combo and there's barely been anything on the PC platform to match their elegance.
> 
> It's not for me though: I prefer the flexibility of multiple monitor set-ups and units I can take apart and upgrade at will.



Although it may not be to your tastes, it looks like on the new Mini you can attach two monitors. And with the previous Mini you could still self-upgrade the hard-drive and memory (although it was hard putting it back together...)


----------



## Jasef (Mar 3, 2009)

Lazy Llama said:


> Dropping the numeric keypad from the wired keyboard is a bit strange.
> 
> But then again, I never use the keypad anyway, so I won't miss it.









From : http://www.apple.com/keyboard/

Do you mean wireless...? Its been like that for a while...


----------



## tarannau (Mar 3, 2009)

It's a little harder than it used to be, but it's still simple to upgrade memory and the HD in the imacs as well. It's the graphics card and processor/logic board that are very expensive and difficult to replace 

It's difficult to see where the imac goes from here to be honest. The CRT 'teardrop'  version was an unmistakeable design classic and as form follows fuction designs go, this latest itineration seems pretty much perfect. The big 'chin' has gone from the white models, and there's no longer any need for a funny round base and anglepoise neck.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 3, 2009)

The 'chin' is still there, just reduced a bit.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Mar 3, 2009)

Jasef said:


> Do you mean wireless...? Its been like that for a while...


No, new wired one


----------



## Jasef (Mar 3, 2009)

Thats weird – I can't find in the Apple Store. http://store.apple.com/us/search?find=keyboards&mco=NDE4NDkwMQ 

Ok, gotcha : http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB869LL/A?fnode=MTY1NDA1Mg&mco=NDE4NjI4Mg&p=1&s=topSellers


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 3, 2009)

Other than accounts who needs a num pad?


----------



## Crispy (Mar 3, 2009)

it's just quicker for typing numbers. I always go to numpad for numbers, especially on CAD (which I don't actually do on the mac, but the habit is ingrained!)


----------



## editor (Mar 3, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Other than accounts who needs a num pad?


Me, when I'm doing my tax return.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 3, 2009)

editor said:


> Me, when I'm doing my tax return.



Ok, other than accountants and the Ed who needs a num pad?


----------



## Kanda (Mar 3, 2009)

Posting from a new 3Ghz 24" Imac... rawr!!!

Fuck knows why but when I 1st walked in, they said they were still unpacking them, wombled about a bit more and asked someone else and they said sure, you can have one.. so at the risk of Ed calling me a fanboi.. I was 1st out the Regent St store with one


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## tarannau (Mar 3, 2009)

Nice purchase though my fanboi friend - a lovely machine indeed.

<envious>


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## Kanda (Mar 3, 2009)

It's fucking quick!!


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## FridgeMagnet (Mar 3, 2009)

Oh shut up, I want one now.

I think I'm going to save up for a Pro though. My iMac will still be usable for a while.


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## Kanda (Mar 3, 2009)

I WAS going to buy the OLED display, but my Pro doesn't have DisplayPort on it 

Hey ho, this rocks


----------



## tarannau (Mar 3, 2009)

The pros are pretty darn impressive in their last form; those new models with Snow Leopard should take care of your supercomputer needs for some time to come. 

I'm envious of the new MBPs, let alone these fancy desktop beasts. For all the stuff about expansion, these imacs are going to be plenty fast for most users. It's hard for me to justify upgrading a 1st gen MBP given that it's still hugely capable at everything I really throw at it, let alone start wondering what I might need 8-cores and 32gig for. Still like one of course, although the simplicity of the imac is hard to beat. Pretty much a perfect second room computer and tv


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Mar 3, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Ok, other than accountants and the Ed who needs a num pad?



Me whenever I have to type more then two numbers. Its a vastly superior way of doing things, although maybe I've just had to do to many shitey data entry jobs in the past.


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## FridgeMagnet (Mar 3, 2009)

tarannau said:


> The pros are pretty darn impressive in their last form; those new models with Snow Leopard should take care of your supercomputer needs for some time to come.
> 
> I'm envious of the new MBPs, let alone these fancy desktop beasts. For all the stuff about expansion, these imacs are going to be plenty fast for most users. It's hard for me to justify upgrading a 1st gen MBP given that it's still hugely capable at everything I really throw at it, let alone start wondering what I might need 8-cores and 32gig for. Still like one of course, although the simplicity of the imac is hard to beat. Pretty much a perfect second room computer and tv



I know what you mean. Probably the most I ever want to do at one time is run, say, Final Cut Express at the same time as BBEdit, Mail, Skype, Safari, maybe an audio editor, and Second Life, which is a horrible CPU and RAM hog - but my MBP will do all that without complaining much. A Pro would mean I could render everything in SL in half a nanosecond, which would be nice, but it's the network that starts to restrict you at that point.


----------



## lozenge (Mar 4, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Ok, other than accountants and the Ed who needs a num pad?



People who use keyboard shortcuts in Logic, and probably other Apple programs designed for "creative professionals".


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## asbestos (Mar 4, 2009)

swapping to a num pad keyboard is a free option.


----------



## The Groke (Mar 4, 2009)

Happy they have updated the mini - mine is starting to struggle a bit with hi-def movie downloads. Can just about manage the 720p rips but baulks at the 1080. Still, done pretty well considering it isn't even a 2 Duo.

One of the new ones with 4Gb, the new NVIDA card and the 320Gb HD would be just perfect for my TV media player/centre.


----------



## nick (Mar 4, 2009)

I bought a timecapsule last weekend

Facepalm


----------



## Structaural (Mar 4, 2009)

nick said:


> I bought a timecapsule last weekend
> 
> Facepalm



My mate bought a 8-core 3 weeks ago (and I warned him). These new ones are about twice as quick and support multi-threading. Still he's an illustrator - probably wouldn't notice.

I've got a July 2007 Octocore. Best thing I ever bought  but I couldn't afford it again for a long while.


----------



## Pie 1 (Mar 4, 2009)

Been waiting for the mac pro update for a while.
My order for a new one to replace my tired old one goes in next week

<rubs hands together>


----------



## Crispy (Mar 4, 2009)

you know what's really sad? the mini is now more powerful than my imac


----------



## Structaural (Mar 4, 2009)

ouch


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 4, 2009)

Crispy said:


> you know what's really sad? the mini is now more powerful than my imac



LOL!


----------



## Grobelaar (Mar 4, 2009)

Damn the price rises is a bit steep - I know I should be more mad at Gordon Brown and the bankers - but hell - that price increase hurts. I notice that when it comes to matching the weak dollar - Apple was very slow about it and never quite matching it at its peak - to slap us with that 25% price rise is a bit of stinker.

Plus those iMacs - they're not exactly the huge performance increase - I think its partly because they use laptop CPUs but people expect desktop CPU power - so I think there's a perception that they're 18 months out of date - but quadcore Core 2 portable CPUs aren't out yet.

I think I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and get a low end Mac Pro. Either that or just get a Mac Mini and spend the change on a Nikon D700... 

I wish they did something a bit more affordable/mid spec in the headless department - it must be such a hackneyed argument, surely Apple can't be that afraid of cannibalising it's iMac line by having a tower with a Core2Duo Quad in it.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 4, 2009)

tbh, the amount of power in the average home PC is already way over-spec for what anyone owuld want to do. Mine still chugs down anything I throw at it. It's only the pros (who have an expenses account) and gamers (who don't buy mac) who really care about having all that power.


----------



## cybertect (Mar 4, 2009)

Crispy said:


> you know what's really sad? the mini is now more powerful than my imac



Possibly more powerful than my last generation Dual 2.3 GHz PowerMac G5. 

Still, it lacks the expansion options that I need.

[I keep toying with the idea of getting a Mini as a home web server if I have some spare cash though]


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 4, 2009)

Crispy said:


> tbh, the amount of power in the average home PC is already way over-spec for what anyone owuld want to do. Mine still chugs down anything I throw at it. It's only the pros (who have an expenses account) and gamers (who don't buy mac) who really care about having all that power.



Oi, I don't have an expense account 

In general though even the iMacs of a couple of generations ago are still absolutely fine as high-end consumer machines.


----------



## cybertect (Mar 4, 2009)

Grobelaar said:


> I wish they did something a bit more affordable/mid spec in the headless department - it must be such a hackneyed argument, surely Apple can't be that afraid of cannibalising it's iMac line by having a tower with a Core2Duo Quad in it.



I know what you mean. I miss having something of the PowerMac 7100/IIci class (I'm dating myself seriously here ) in the line-up. 

Something that fits on a desk with a reasonable amount of expansion, a fair bit of oomph and an external monitor (perhaps two displays). The gap betwen the Mac Mini and the MacPro tower in this respect is huge.

On the flip side, Steve Jobs probably made a wise move in rationalising the number of different Macs that Apple were offering when he came back [Consumer/Pro, laptop/desktop]. I think there were something like 12 unique models in 1997. It was hugely confusing and difficult to decide which to buy, even to someone who knew their way round the range well - and they all seemed to use different RAM.


----------



## Grobelaar (Mar 5, 2009)

cybertect said:


> I know what you mean. I miss having something of the PowerMac 7100/IIci class (I'm dating myself seriously here ) in the line-up.
> 
> Something that fits on a desk with a reasonable amount of expansion, a fair bit of oomph and an external monitor (perhaps two displays). The gap betwen the Mac Mini and the MacPro tower in this respect is huge.
> 
> On the flip side, Steve Jobs probably made a wise move in rationalising the number of different Macs that Apple were offering when he came back [Consumer/Pro, laptop/desktop]. I think there were something like 12 unique models in 1997. It was hugely confusing and difficult to decide which to buy, even to someone who knew their way round the range well - and they all seemed to use different RAM.



had a IIci for work back in the day. First work mac was an SE30, then IIci, then IIfx, then had 7200 (that was a piece of shit), 9600/350 (last of the 'G2's) then a G3/450. Then I  got a job in video games and the bad old world of Windows beckoned.

Only today I was doing heavy Excel work and lamenting one of the first things I noticed using windows - why is the Ctrl key so far away from the X,C and V keys - make cutting and pasting a real stretch on the old fingers - I always miss and end up copying an empty cell instead of pasting.


----------



## cybertect (Mar 5, 2009)

Just totting up which ones I've used as my main machine over the years..

Work machines: SE/30, IIci, LC III, Quadra 650, PowerBook G3 'WallStreet', PowerBook G4 Ti, PowerBook G4 Al, and latterly a couple of MacBook Pros.

Home Macs: 512K, Mac Plus, Classic, IIvx, 7100av, Starmax 4000 DT clone, G4/500, G5 dual 2.3

I also picked up a IIfx in lieu of an invoice for half an hour's work for a client in the 90s (because I always wanted one) and I have a few others gathering dust in the loft (a 128K, LC, LC II, III, PowerBook Duo 2100 + Dock and a Newton 2100).


----------



## Grobelaar (Mar 5, 2009)

cybertect said:


> Just totting up which ones I've used as my main machine over the years..
> 
> Work machines: SE/30, IIci, LC III, Quadra 650, PowerBook G3 'WallStreet', PowerBook G4 Ti, PowerBook G4 Al, and latterly a couple of MacBook Pros.
> 
> ...



oh yeah I forgot the Quadra 800.

Personal macs have been just a G3/350 and PB 12" 1ghz - tend to make them last a bit longer than is good for them.


----------



## Structaural (Mar 5, 2009)

Crispy said:


> tbh, the amount of power in the average home PC is already way over-spec for what anyone owuld want to do. Mine still chugs down anything I throw at it. It's only the pros (who have an expenses account) and gamers (who don't buy mac) who really care about having all that power.



I lament the medium-weight macs of old, I'm a pro (without an expense account) and gamer but would have liked something slightly more powerful than the top iMac but with better expandability which would make it cheaper in the long run (being able to swap out the GPU for instance). The massive jump to server level chips for any kind of expandability and power is a bit too much for most of us who just want a decent computer at home. But this is a constant whinge to Apple.
Don't get me wrong I love my Mac Pro, it's a beast, but I could never have afforded it without inheriting a bit of money, and unless I'm photoshopping, rendering footage, Cinema4D animations or After Effects it's woefully underused (and with dodgy memory management it'll never fully utilise those 8 cores properly). But it's future proof for now.
I've never been a big fan of the iMac range anyway - it saved Apple but it made affordable decent setups a thing of the past and contributed to the fanboi, ponceyfication of Apple . The current range is a big step away from  the horrible old bubblegum range that I particularly disliked, though.


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## Vintage Paw (Mar 5, 2009)

I got a bottom-of-the-range early 2006 iMac. It's still perfectly acceptable for my needs. The hardest thing I throw at it is photoshop. Had it 3 years and apart from a glitch with permissions early this year it's still going strong. Just done an erase and install of Leopard (yesterday in fact) and it feels like a new machine again. Can't see the point of upgrading (even if I had the money). 

Anyway, I like my matt screen too much. Having a glossy screen black macbook as well, I can really tell the difference when doing photo editing. I had to use the macbook as my primary comp for a while, and got my photo workflow set up on it. I thought it was fine, had calibrated the monitor with Spyder2Pro, etc. Got everything back up and running on the matt screen iMac yesterday and boy was I wrong. I far prefer the matt screen for photo editing. I wonder if they'll ever bring them back (have the entirely disappeared now? If so, that's really fucking shitty).


----------



## editor (Mar 5, 2009)

CNet aren't too impressed with the new Mac Mini:





> After taking a hard look at the $599 Mac Mini, our OS neutral assessment of the refresh is that its onboard features and performance benchmarks don't stack up to other budget PCs on the market, where you can spend $100 less and pick up a PC like the Acer Aspire X1700-U3700A, which provides a faster CPU clock speed, three times more RAM, and more than five times the storage space, not to mention a variety of superior internal expansion opportunities.
> 
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10188949-1.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave


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## Lazy Llama (Mar 5, 2009)

They didn't add the cost of the paper bag to hide the fugly face of the Acer Aspire though


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## editor (Mar 5, 2009)

Lazy Llama said:


> They didn't add the cost of the paper bag to hide the fugly face of the Acer Aspire though


The Apple is undeniably better looking but I don't think it justifies its inflated price tag, unless you can afford to pay a 20% premium just for looks and still get an inferior spec'd machine.

Mind you, if I had bags o'cash, I'd probaby get the Mac Mini.


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## Kanda (Mar 5, 2009)

That Acer isn't too bad http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/acer-aspire-x1700-u3700a/4505-3118_7-33508017.html

I'll stick with my brand spanking new 24" iMac though


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## elbows (Mar 5, 2009)

Ive got the previous Mac Pro, I was sort of amused to see that I paid £175 for 8GB of additional 3rd party RAM, and Apple wanted, erm, £1200 for the same!


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## Structaural (Mar 5, 2009)

elbows said:


> Ive got the previous Mac Pro, I was sort of amused to see that I paid £175 for 8GB of additional 3rd party RAM, and Apple wanted, erm, £1200 for the same!



init! stunning markup for a heatsink on a chip. They seem a bit more competitive now.

Where did you get yours from - I ended up getting mine from the states but it still worked out about £250.


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## elbows (Mar 5, 2009)

I usually just go to Kingston.com, find the right RAM, then find a UK distributor for that Kingston RAM (in this case I used dabs). The chips I got are visually identical to the Apple ones.

The new Mac Pro's RAM does seem a lot better price from Apple compared to before, at least for the 2GB modules (at 'only' £80) but the 4GB module is still £640 and the older Mac Pro RAM prices are still silly.


----------



## Pie 1 (Mar 7, 2009)

You've got to be either very dim, or be a company that doesn't give a toss as it's all a tax right off to buy extra RAM from Apple.


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## FridgeMagnet (Mar 7, 2009)

The only situation where it's worth it is where you're ordering extra RAM as an option to replace existing chips, and if you got it from Crucial etc afterwards, you'd end up with some SIMMs spare - you know, ones you think "yeah I'll just ebay that then" but you never get around to it. That only really happens with laptops and iMacs though.


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## Sunray (Mar 9, 2009)

editor said:


> The Apple is undeniably better looking but I don't think it justifies its inflated price tag, unless you can afford to pay a 20% premium just for looks and still get an inferior spec'd machine.
> 
> Mind you, if I had bags o'cash, I'd probaby get the Mac Mini.



I think they are relying on the premise that if you want an Apple your going to have to pay extra for it.  Takes some balls in the current economic climate.


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## Boczkowski (Mar 10, 2009)

Apple touch screen netbook?


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## Crispy (Mar 10, 2009)

Touchscreen netbook? Not likely.

Large-format ipod touch? Maybe.
Not with a resistive screen like that though.


----------



## editor (Mar 10, 2009)

Boczkowski said:


> Apple touch screen netbook?


Those rumours have been circulating forever. One thing is sure though: Apple is missing out on a whole load of income and new user growth by not offering a netbook range, although perhaps being seen to follow the herd into netbook land may be a bitter pill for them to swallow.

I would have bought a Mac netbook if one had been available last year, and might have quite happily paid a £50+ premium if the mix was right, and I guess I'm not alone there.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Mar 10, 2009)

I'd have though that if Apple do go that route, they'd be more in the Sony Vaio P-series price bracket of around £750-800.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 10, 2009)

Sony have been famously quoted as not wanting to race to the bottom.  I think Apple are in the same bracket.


----------



## tarannau (Mar 10, 2009)

Yep, I can't see any reason why Apple would release a netbook at a £50(+) premium at all. Healthy financial position and a strong brand with no need to make rash decisions. 

If they do release a new product, I'm fairly certain it'll be premium priced and something more based around multitouch than a standard netbook.


----------



## editor (Mar 10, 2009)

Lazy Llama said:


> I'd have though that if Apple do go that route, they'd be more in the Sony Vaio P-series price bracket of around £750-800.


I don't think even Apple with their wild premium pricing would be as daft as to follow Sony's 'lead' in this area.


Sunray;8854569]Sony have been famously quoted as not wanting to race to the bottom.  I think Apple are in the same bracket.[/quote]With Apple's notebook sales set to fall said:


> Yep, I can't see any reason why Apple would release a netbook at a £50(+) premium at all. Healthy financial position and a strong brand with no need to make rash decisions.


Oh I dunno. Microsoft has received a _massive_ boost of XP sales thanks to netbooks. What better way to introduce new users to Apple's excellent OS than via a great netbook?

Besides, Apple _do_ sell non high-end products: at £500 the Mac Mini is well within budget pricing.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 10, 2009)

OK, so let's assume that Apple want to make a netboook? What sort of machine would it be?

First, screen size. The 600 vertical pixels on most netbooks is too few. The System Preferences pane is 560px high, the menubar is 22px high, which leaves 12 pixels for the dock!
The old ibook had 1024x768, so there was 186px for the dock. I think this is the minimum. A 1280x800 screen for a mac netbook would make sense then, to keep with the 16:10 screen ratio common to all mac laptops.

Second, keyboard size. I very much doubt that apple would compromise on key size. I think the narrowest keyboard they've made was for the old 12" powerbook (you can see where this is going)

Third, touchpad. As big as possible. Most likely of the zero-button design as found on the new madbooks.

These three things conspire to prevent apple releasing something as small as the original eee. I think the Samsung NC20 is about the right formfactor for an apple netbook. It's about as small as you can shrink the case for 'proper' laptop components. Funnily enough, it's almost exactly the same size as the PB12"

But, to keep the cost down, it would have to be made of plastic, not aluminium. It would be the most under-powered mac in the product lineup.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 10, 2009)

Unless of course they release some sort of netbook with a radically new approach to the OS...


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## Crispy (Mar 10, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Unless of course they release some sort of netbook with a radically new approach to the OS...


Then it would not be a netbook, it would be something else. If it's a touchscreened tablet, it's an 'ipod touch maxi' or something.

A netbook is a small, cheap version of a regular computer. I'm sure apple can do small and cheap]i]er[/i].


----------



## editor (Mar 10, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Second, keyboard size. I very much doubt that apple would compromise on key size.


You could argue that they certainly compromised on the iPhone's keyboard and on a lot of its functionality (no video, no MMS etc), so why wouldn't they make similar compromises - sweetened by their tech fairy dust -  to secure a stake in a highly lucrative market?


----------



## editor (Mar 10, 2009)

The thing about netbooks is that they already have Apple's 'wow' factor - I'm in a cafe with my Asus 901 and two people have come over to ask what it was and say that it looks cool.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 10, 2009)

because I don't think they'd make a _computer_ that compromised the standard mac interface. The iphone was an entirely new device, so they could set the standard. From apple's POV, an apple computer has to work like an apple computer, or it isn't one. That means a screen big enough for the standard UI, it means a keyboard that's like typing on a standard keyboard, it means a touchpad large enough not to cramp up on. they're a 'premium' brand - they sell themselves on quality and ease of use - compact keyboards do not have those attributes.


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## elbows (Mar 10, 2009)

Im more certain they will do other multitouch devices one day than I am about them doing a cheap netbook.

Maybe they will do something crazy like an expensive device, about the size of a netbook, but with 2 screens, a normal one in the normal position, and a multitouch one instead of keyboard/trackpad.


----------



## editor (Mar 10, 2009)

elbows said:


> Im more certain they will do other multitouch devices one day than I am about them doing a cheap netbook.
> 
> Maybe they will do something crazy like an expensive device, about the size of a netbook, but with 2 screens, a normal one in the normal position, and a multitouch one instead of keyboard/trackpad.


Anything less than a hardware keyboard on a netbook style device will be a horrible compromise.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 10, 2009)

How about a iPhone Giga.

Mobile OSX with a large touch screen, very slim, light and sexy.  

Could work?

I venture, Cut and Paste would be a minimum requirement.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 10, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Then it would not be a netbook, it would be something else. If it's a touchscreened tablet, it's an 'ipod touch maxi' or something.



Well, yeah, that was kinda what I was getting at.  I can't see Apple just following what others have done, they seem to prefer to be the ones leading.  If they do a netbook like device you can almost guarantee that it will be something different.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Mar 11, 2009)

New iPod Shuffle, up to 4GB now 
http://www.apple.com/uk/ipodshuffle/


----------



## tarannau (Mar 11, 2009)

editor said:


> The thing about netbooks is that they already have Apple's 'wow' factor - I'm in a cafe with my Asus 901 and two people have come over to ask what it was and say that it looks cool.



I don't think they have to be honest. Apple's wow factor has always been about the product quality and integration to a large extent - their designs haven't really been flashy since the fluoro days of the teardrop imac and that was still well grounded in a logical, practical form factor

The ipod didn't win people over because of 'wow' looks -  the simplicity of design helped, but it was the integration of itunes and the user friendly interface that won people  over. I don't get that feeling with a netbook, more a slight irritation with the undersized keyboard and screen and a general lack of snappiness. That's not an Apple experience as they'd like it.


----------



## cybertect (Mar 11, 2009)

Lazy Llama said:


> New iPod Shuffle, up to 4GB now
> http://www.apple.com/uk/ipodshuffle/



Natty. But does that mean you can only use it with the supplied ear-buds?


----------



## editor (Mar 11, 2009)

Lazy Llama said:


> New iPod Shuffle, up to 4GB now
> http://www.apple.com/uk/ipodshuffle/


And they had to take down the entire online store for that. LOL.


----------



## stupid kid (Mar 11, 2009)

Lazy Llama said:


> New iPod Shuffle, up to 4GB now
> http://www.apple.com/uk/ipodshuffle/



Looks like they've made some decent improvements, but it didn't actually need to get any smaller. The old one had a nice feel, just the right size. Being able to store and flick through playlists is a huge improvement on the old one, definately beats having to press skip 100 odd times if the song you wanted to hear was at the other end of the list.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Mar 11, 2009)

stupid kid said:


> Being able to store and flick through playlists is a huge improvement on the old one, definately beats having to press skip 100 odd times if the song you wanted to hear was at the other end of the list.



Yes this is a definate improvement.

I woder how long the battery will last on these things.


----------



## editor (Mar 11, 2009)

It looks pretty shit to me. There's no controls on the player, you're lumbered with Apple's proprietary earbuds (so you can't use your own and if they break the player's unusable) and the voice feature that barks track titles at you sounds fucking ridiculous. FAIL.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/11/apples-ipod-shuffle-hits-4gb/


----------



## Crispy (Mar 11, 2009)

pretty much my opinion too


----------



## stupid kid (Mar 11, 2009)

editor said:


> It looks pretty shit to me. There's no controls on the player, you're lumbered with Apple's proprietary earbuds (so you can't use your own and if they break the player's unusable) and the voice feature that barks track titles at you sounds fucking ridiculous. FAIL.
> 
> http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/11/apples-ipod-shuffle-hits-4gb/



I quite like the Steven Hawking-esqueness of the voice, but if it wants to announce every single track then that's a bit shit, also you're right about the earphones, apples are rubbish.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 11, 2009)

Controls on the ear phones only? Fail. Apple ear phones are shite.


----------



## editor (Mar 11, 2009)

stupid kid said:


> I quite like the Steven Hawking-esqueness of the voice, but if it wants to announce every single track then that's a bit shit, also you're right about the earphones, apples are rubbish.


 Something like the Sansa Clip looks a way better investment. You get a proper screen, 15hrs battery, built in mic + recorder, FM radio with 20 presets, OLED screen and 3.5mm socket - all for £20.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 11, 2009)

I must say though it is nice to see them just updating their product line without all the fanfare. I wonder what's next, given they're working their way through recently. Iphone update coming?


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## Crispy (Mar 11, 2009)

Almost certainly in June.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 11, 2009)

Care to speculate on what the update will bring?


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## tarannau (Mar 11, 2009)

There's loads of websites full of that apple speculation stuff, very few of them with any consistent record of success.


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## Crispy (Mar 11, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Care to speculate on what the update will bring?


I'd have nothing to back it up with.

My _guess_ would be: faster, more memory, video recording (and youtube uploads). Maybe MMS and maybe copy and paste. Only the tiniest superficial physical changes.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 11, 2009)

tarannau said:


> There's loads of websites full of that apple speculation stuff, very few of them with any consistent record of success.



Yeah I know, and had I been interested I'd asked them, I'm curious what Crispy and Urban75 peeps think generally...


----------



## editor (Mar 11, 2009)

Apple really have lost the plot with that new iPod shuffle:





> New iPod shuffle requires extra adapter for third-party headphones
> 
> We were wondering why the new voice-enabled iPod shuffle even has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack since it's controlled by proprietary headphones, and we just got the answer: non-Apple headphones will require a special dongle that includes the new three-button controller, and Apple says it's working with third parties to bring other compatible 'phones to market.
> 
> ...


Engdget user comment:





> steve is gone for what, two months and they have already forgotten how to make products?


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 11, 2009)

Crispy said:


> I'd have nothing to back it up with.
> 
> My _guess_ would be: faster, more memory, video recording (and youtube uploads). Maybe MMS and maybe copy and paste. Only the tiniest superficial physical changes.



I'd go with that and add hd video...


----------



## editor (Mar 11, 2009)

CNet are even less impressed:





> *This iPod Shuffle is a disaster*
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10193616-1.html


Ouch!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 11, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I'd go with that and add hd video...



What, on an iPhone? It can't even do DVD quality now.

I don't think the next hardware update will be anything really worth writing home about; bit faster, more memory. Video is a possibility. MMS, I don't think so, the target market don't use it, though if they add video they might slap it in anyway (Apple don't generally do that mind, add features because they can).

Things like cut and paste will be software updates if they happen. Bear in mind that they don't want to do updates which require buying a new phone unless they really can't help it - lots of people already have iPhones, they're not going to be buying new ones because they won't be subsidised by a contract if they do, and Apple don't want to cut out their existing base. So I'd expect most of the innovations to come via software.


----------



## editor (Mar 11, 2009)

Over a year ago I said that I reckoned Apple would clean up with a Kindle-like ebook reader device that hooked up to iTunes to deliver books, films and music - and that rumour is now out on the web! http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10193965-37.html

*gives crystal ball another wipe
*checks tea leaves


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## Crispy (Mar 11, 2009)

hmm. an ebook without an e-ink screen dies the death of crap battery life.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 11, 2009)

On the subject of predictions, I just remembered - John Gruber was writing last month about a Shuffle with a text-to-speech interface.
http://daringfireball.net/2009/02/lost_in_the_shuffle
Gruber may be an Apple fan, but he's not an Apple fanboy, and he's pretty sharp. I think that one was mostly coincidence mind you.


----------



## editor (Mar 11, 2009)

Crispy said:


> hmm. an ebook without an e-ink screen dies the death of crap battery life.


Maybe, but who knows what technlogy is coming up? Or maybe it would be some kind of dual screen job.

There's a ton of potential for eBook readers right now and the market hasn't exactly come out with any winning designs yet. 

It's wide open for someone with a bit style and nous to come in and make a killing IMO...


----------



## Lazy Llama (Mar 11, 2009)

As that article says, Jobs dissed the Kindle big time a year ago because "people don't read any more".

Maybe an Apple TVbook ?


----------



## paolo (Mar 11, 2009)

The "no display" aspect of the Shuffle has always been fail IMO... moving the controls out onto a wire is even worse... I've got controls on my ear buds, and find them irritating to use.

Anyway, keeping up... yes, I remember that prediction Ed... and yep, I think that kind of thing is much more 'Apple' than just doing a me-too netbook.


----------



## paolo (Mar 11, 2009)

editor said:


> Or maybe it would be some kind of dual screen job.



That would cushty... a 2nd screen would allow a pop up virtual keyboard and leave a nice usable display area. It would also give the package a kind of unique-ish cool appeal (forgetting the DS for a moment).


----------



## Crispy (Mar 11, 2009)

well if they are going to do an ebook, it's not with these Wintek screens. Crispy Predicts: ipod touch maxi - for _real_ internet and _real_ movies on the go. It'll run a custom version of OSX touch, and will be sold as a 'companion' to your computer, not a replacement for it.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 11, 2009)

iTablet?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 11, 2009)

Crispy said:


> well if they are going to do an ebook, it's not with these Wintek screens. Crispy Predicts: ipod touch maxi - for _real_ internet and _real_ movies on the go. It'll run a custom version of OSX touch, and will be sold as a 'companion' to your computer, not a replacement for it.



If I was a betting man, this is what my money would be on.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 11, 2009)

Thing is, will it sell? i don't want one, do you?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 11, 2009)

fridgemagnet predicts: not. I don't see any significantly new hardware coming out from Apple for a while actually. They seem to be a company in the position of consolidating what they already have and offering new services, rather than taking any risks with a new line. Faster and better hardware sure, new product lines, nah.


----------



## editor (Mar 11, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Thing is, will it sell? i don't want one, do you?


Well, the Nokia internet tablets haven't exactly set the world on fire...


----------



## Crispy (Mar 11, 2009)

the 'tablet' computer has always been a solution looking for a problem, IMO.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 11, 2009)

Crispy said:


> the 'tablet' computer has always been a solution looking for a problem, IMO.



I agree although I know a few Doctors that's probably like them introduced into the NHS...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 11, 2009)

It's been pointed out elsewhere that if Apple wanted to make a tablet mac, they would be cracking down on, or buying out, people like http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook who already make tablet macs.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 12, 2009)

You know I can see a proper revision of the iPhone coming. Apple have no reason not too, especially with coming competition from Android and the Pre...


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Thing is, will it sell? i don't want one, do you?



I want a touch mac, yes.


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## Crispy (Mar 12, 2009)

elbows said:


> I want a touch mac, yes.


It won't be a mac


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## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 12, 2009)

Crispy said:


> the 'tablet' computer has always been a solution looking for a problem, IMO.



You see them being used quite a lot by sound engineers setting up PA systems in big arenas.  You can get software on them that connects to all the EQ units via wifi, so the engineer can wander around listening to the system in different areas as they make adjustments.


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## Crispy (Mar 12, 2009)

Very useful, but very niche. They're just not mass market. Unless everyone's been missing a trick...


----------



## Kanda (Mar 12, 2009)

they use tablets in 24 too, that's why I want one. I also want a gun and a helicopter and one of those black 4x4's with the blacked out windows.

.. and a mobile device that Jack uses, and his daughter.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 12, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Very useful, but very niche. They're just not mass market. Unless everyone's been missing a trick...



I can see a suitably well designed one being the hub of an integrated home entertainment/control system...


----------



## Structaural (Mar 12, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> You know I can see a proper revision of the iPhone coming. Apple have no reason not too, especially with coming competition from Android and the Pre...



All it really needs to compete with the others is a processor and ram upgrade, more low-level SDK access, then they could switch on backgrounding and let apps talk to each other. (and cut and paste dammit). 

Saw an 'interesting' app on Android the other day, you take a picture of a barcode in the DVD shop, it returns the title, activates in your bitorrent client and it's downloaded before you get home - shoplifting was never that much fun.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 12, 2009)

Haha that's fucking great!


----------



## fractionMan (Mar 12, 2009)

Structaural said:


> Saw an 'interesting' app on Android the other day, you take a picture of a barcode in the DVD shop, it returns the title, activates in your bitorrent client and it's downloaded before you get home - shoplifting was never that much fun.



I am so getting a g2


----------



## editor (Mar 16, 2009)

That new shuffle really is a pup:





> Sigh, it looks like Apple's habit of squeezing iPod accessory manufacturers for license fees has now extended to freaking _headphones_ -- _iLounge_ is reporting that the new iPod shuffle can only be controlled by headphones with a special hardware authentication chip.
> 
> That means that third parties will have to pay Apple for the privilege of making shuffle-compatible accessories, and you can bet they'll just pass that cost right on to consumers -- we wouldn't expect any cheap headphone adapters or inexpensive replacement headphones for the littlest iPod. _iLounge_ calls this a "nightmare scenario" for iPod fans, and we're inclined to agree -- it's one thing for Apple to require the Made For iPod certification for accessories that interface with the dock connector, but trying to lock down headphones is a sad new low, and it makes the lack of physical controls on the shuffle seem even more ridiculous. [engadget]


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## Crispy (Mar 16, 2009)

very lame


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## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 16, 2009)

That's a quite spectacular bit of control freakery


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## Bob_the_lost (Mar 16, 2009)

Guess i'm not getting a new shuffle then. The remote on the headphones wasn't a good start but if i'm going to pay £15 for the adaptor they can fuck right off.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 16, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> That's a quite spectacular bit of control freakery



Innit!


----------



## Crispy (Mar 16, 2009)

It's been the same for the AV-out on regular ipods for a while now. My brother's old one can use any old 4-ring jack to phonos AV cable, but the newer models need the authentication chip. The shit you can get away with when you dominate a market


----------



## pk (Mar 16, 2009)

Structaural said:


> Saw an 'interesting' app on Android the other day, you take a picture of a barcode in the DVD shop, it returns the title, activates in your bitorrent client and it's downloaded before you get home - shoplifting was never that much fun.



That's fucking sweet, there could not be more of a middle-finger up to the big Hollywood movie fuckwits imaginable.


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## pk (Mar 16, 2009)

Crispy said:


> It's been the same for the AV-out on regular ipods for a while now. My brother's old one can use any old 4-ring jack to phonos AV cable, but the newer models need the authentication chip. The shit you can get away with when you dominate a market



Wasn't aware of this - pretty shitty behaviour for sure.

I don't think I've ever used the crappy white headphones in any of the three iPod/iPhone devices I have owned.

Surely there must be a hack to get around the authentication?


----------



## Crispy (Mar 16, 2009)

Not that I'm aware of


----------



## Structaural (Mar 16, 2009)

pk said:


> Wasn't aware of this - pretty shitty behaviour for sure.
> 
> I don't think I've ever used the crappy white headphones in any of the three iPod/iPhone devices I have owned.
> 
> Surely there must be a hack to get around the authentication?



Well out of order, hope they get slapped with something, they're starting to make microsoft look fair. I hate all that proprietary crap. Still the overpriced third-party manufacturers don't seem to mind.

Article on the possible chip here:

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/03/14/we-found-the-chip-in.html

That shuffle is the shittest, shit thing I've seen for a while. It's annoying enough using an iPhone with 3rd party headphones without the controls available easily.


----------



## paolo (Mar 17, 2009)

The story _might_ not be all it's been conspira-hyped up to be.

"You can quote me on this: it's a control chip. There's no authentication. There's no DRM," - Monster Cables...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2343217,00.asp


Gizmodo strikeout chunks of their article following a retraction from V-Moda...

http://i.gizmodo.com/5170797/confir...-earbuds-need-authentication-chip-to-function


Ars Technica plays it down...

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/03/third-party-headphones-do-require-apple-supplied-chip.ars


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## Structaural (Mar 17, 2009)

It's still a proprietary chip that allows manufacturers to put the 'made for iPhone' on their packaging, not much will get sold without it, though technically you don't 'need' it. Controlling tossers.


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## editor (Mar 17, 2009)

Structaural said:


> It's still a proprietary chip that allows manufacturers to put the 'made for iPhone' on their packaging, not much will get sold without it, though technically you don't 'need' it. Controlling tossers.


Exactly.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 17, 2009)

Live blog of the new iPhone stuff here.


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## editor (Mar 18, 2009)

That new Mac Pro looks fucking lovely. Wildly over priced of course and it hasn't even got BluRay, but still lush to look at.







http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/18/apple-nehalem-based-mac-pro-in-depth-impressions/


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## Crispy (Mar 18, 2009)

You're paying for those symmetrical IO ports


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## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> That new Mac Pro looks fucking lovely. Wildly over priced of course and it hasn't even got BluRay, but still lush to look at.



It's aimed at the high end video market. Specifically Final Cut Pro.

The equivalent Windows hardware would cost the same, much more if going for the industry equivalent - Avid.

And don't argue, because I'm right.


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## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

pk said:


> The equivalent Windows hardware would cost the same, much more if going for the industry equivalent - Avid.
> 
> And don't argue, because I'm right.


I cant be arsed to be honest. But we both know you're wrong, unless you're going to be banging on about a niche within a niche within a niche.


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## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> I cant be arsed to be honest. But we both know you're wrong.



No, we both know I quote prices for both types of system on a weekly basis, for the niche market that the model you were referring to was designed for.

HD video.

Like for like, the Windows systems are more expensive once you've custom made them to the same spec.

I will never supply my clients a cheapo Dell system, it's not worth it, completely dead within 10 months if you're lucky.

I still regularly use a 5 year old G5, never crashes, even when running massive HD files.

Sorry, but Windows machines costing less than $3000 couldn't do that 5 years ago, and to my knowledge still can't now.

When they can, recommend me a good model and I'll look into it properly again.


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## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

pk said:


> I will never supply my clients a cheapo Dell system, it's not worth it, completely dead within 10 months if you're lucky.


Yes. YOU are the expert. NO ONE knows more than you. Everyone using a Windows box is WRONG. Or INCOMPETENT. A Mac is best for EVERYTHING. And that's a pk FACT!


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## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> Yes. YOU are the expert. NO ONE knows more than you. Everyone using a Windows box is WRONG. Or INCOMPETENT. A Mac is best for EVERYTHING. And that's a pk FACT!



No-one on here knows more than me about HD video, and that's a pk fact.

So, yes, it might be overpriced if you were considering using that particular machine for web design or something where you're shuffling tiny files, but for big HD projects it's a choice between Final Cut Pro and Avid.

Avid is at least twice the price to set up.

Therefore, in the grand scheme of things, it isn't that overpriced at all.

Google it mate, I can't be arsed to have this debate again.


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## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

To be fair here PK's right. High end video workstations using Final Cut and Macs are generally considerably cheaper than their Avid-toting PC equivalents.

Mac Pros are expensive, but you'd be hard pressed to find cheaper high quality pc equivalents from major brands, let alone something with that record of stability and consistency. Yes, you could possibly build something cheaper, but most companies aren't going to be fannying around with self-built rigs.

The difficulty's more justifying the cost and power of mac pros for anything other than video producing tbh.


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## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

pk;8892297]So said:


> To be fair here PK's right.


What, all Dells only last ten months at best?


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## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

Don't deliberately misrepresent me old bean. PK's right in that Mac Pros offer one of the most affordable high end video editing workstations. Kitting out something comparable from Dell and Avid would almost certainly be more expensive, let alone from more prestigious and reliable pc brands. The Mac Pro's actually quite competitive costwise when it's first released, boasting new high end processors and the like. 

The difficulty is this idea of the niche. In the olden days, designers craved the most powerful machine that they could get their hands on even for Photoshop. Now it's far less clear cut and an 8-core powerhouse for a few filters seems excessive, with the imac a little too restrictive for many. There's the eternal argument for a mid-range tower or at least a cheaper Mac Pro, which seems to have more legs these days.


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## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Don't deliberately misrepresent me old bean. PK's right in that Mac Pros offer one of the most affordable high end video editing workstations.


So the equivalent Windows hardware to the Mac Pro in the linked article costs exactly the same?


----------



## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

Cost one up for me using those new server chips and Avid and see how it compares to a base or mid model Mac Pro with FCP by all means. Every time I see a comparison the Macs do more than well against cheaper pc brands like Dell, let alone ones with a reputation for quality.


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## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Cost one up for me using those new server chips and Avid and see how it compares to a base or mid model Mac Pro with FCP by all means.


You haven't actually answered my question. I'm referring to the Mac Pro linked in the article.


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## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

That is the base 8-core model on review from what I can tell. Feel free to link to details of comparatively-specced 8-core Nehalem pc workstations at lower prices by all means. That's the question I asked


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## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> That is the base 8-core model on review from what I can tell. Feel free to link to details of comparatively-specced 8-core Nehalem pc workstations at lower prices by all means. That's the question I asked


Take it up with Engadget, or read some of the detailed users comments in their article.

*note: just before I get hit with the usual 'Mac h8r' nonsense, please note that I have wholesomely praised the Mac Pro in question - it's a beautiful looking machine. I just commented that the price is high, which is exactly what the article says.


----------



## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

Since when has engadget been an accuracy bible rather than a breathless gadgetboy site? And you're seriously considering pointing to the comments as a decent source of credible info?



Honestly, nobody's denying that the mac pro's expensive and too much for the average user, myself included. But it is seriously competitively priced for that kind of spec, especially given that the Nehalem chips used are new. It's whether you think that spec and the new, more costly components are worth the considerable premium.


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## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Since when has engadget been an accuracy bible rather than a breathless gadgetboy site? And you're seriously considering pointing to the comments as a decent source of credible info?


I've certainly found  some of the user comments there more credible than what is sometimes posted here (e.g. "all Dells fail in ten months"). But feel free to dismiss them all out of hand if you wish. Personally, I've found some pretty useful and enlightening stuff in there once I've got past the fanboy dorks.


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## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

Oh please, I'm still waiting for details of those much cheaper pc 8-core video workstations to no avail. You can even link to those informed comments and suggestions on engadget if you like.

PK's a big bullshit hound and set in his ways, but he does know his onions when it comes to video editing. And he's got a point here about the cost.


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## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Oh please, I'm still waiting for details of those much cheaper pc 8-core video workstations to no avail.


It costs $2,499 for a single quad-core 2.66GHz rig and $3,299 for a twin quad-core 2.26GHz machine. If you're convinced that it's absolutely impossible to get a PC system of similar spec to the one listed in the article then I'll just nod my head  because I'm not going to follow you along pk's familiar path of loading caveats galore to create a triumphant niche.

The Mac Pro is sold as a consumer machine and that's what it's being compared to.


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

I'll say it clearly for the benefit of those who don't like to hear the facts.

If you set up an HD edit system using Dell machines it'll be dead within 10 months.

You'll need to replace the drives and probably the video card, minimum, not to mention the fact that it crashes 5 or 6 times a day, losing up to 1/2 hour's work each day. You can't auto-save every 5 minutes or it slows you down.

Take my word for it. When it comes to HD editing (HD being the format of all modern video cameras, domestic and pro) then Dell = LOL.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 19, 2009)

I don't disagree that the build quality is good on the mac, but surely a hard drive is a hard drive?


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

pk said:


> If you set up an HD edit system using Dell machines it'll be dead within 10 months.


Have you a source for that please? Thanks.





Crispy said:


> I don't disagree that the build quality is good on the mac, but surely a hard drive is a hard drive?


Well, exactly.


----------



## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> It costs $2,499 for a single quad-core 2.66GHz rig and $3,299 for a twin quad-core 2.26GHz machine. If you're convinced that it's absolutely impossible to get a PC system of similar spec to the one listed in the article then I'll just nod my head.
> 
> I'm not going to follow you along pk's familiar path of loading caveats galore to create a trumphant niche.



What caveats? I'm not asking the earth, simply for you to get off your arse and post up details of a comparable Nehalem 8-core pc workstation with Avid. Not rocket science.

So far I can see you twisting PK's words (eg 'all Dells fail within 10 months'), entirely failing to come up with any comparison or facts and getting all sniffily precious when someone challenges you. I don't always appreciate PK's bombastic posts, but he's specifically talking about video editing and he's got a point here.

By all means feel free to link to details of cheaper comparable pc workstations and prove him wrong instead of running your mouth and being evasive. Gawd knows, I've asked politely.


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> It costs $2,499 for a single quad-core 2.66GHz rig and $3,299 for a twin quad-core 2.26GHz machine. If you're convinced that it's absolutely impossible to get a PC system of *similar spec* to the one listed in the article then I'll just nod my head  because I'm not going to follow you along pk's familiar path of loading caveats galore to create a triumphant niche.



If by "similar spec" you mean one that you're not bothered about failing miserably when running high end pro apps (for which the Mac Pro was specifically designed) then yes, you probably could.

I just have more regard for my clients, and my own stress levels, to bother trying. Seen waaaay too many fail.

Come on, you know you're out of your depth here.

This isn't a fanboy thing, nor a "bullshit hound" thing (thanks T, kiss my arse) it's something that I know a lot about.

I've said before, you show me an equivalent Microsoft system that is as reliable and as swift for the same money and I'll snap it up, many of my clients would prefer to have edit kit that they can network with office machines, journo laptops, etc. which isn't easy with Mac-PC hybrids.

I need reliable and value for money rigs - Windows simply don't do them.

Hardly a niche within a niche either, thousands of people in this city alone need to be editing HD video and most of them couldn't give a fuck which platform they use.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> What caveats? I'm not asking the earth, simply for you to get off your arse and post up details of a comparable Nehalem 8-core pc workstation with Avid. Not rocket science.


Sorry, but if you can't be arsed to read the Engadget article after charging into this thread,  I'm not going to do it for you.


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## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

Y'see I think you're pushing it too hard there PK. Video editing's no longer the domain of ultra expensive machines only.

Mac Pros have the latest, greatest and most expensive components, but it's possible to get last year's models on the pc and mac side for cheaper. And, as you know from your own vintage kit, they're still useable.


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

Crispy said:


> I don't disagree that the build quality is good on the mac, but surely a hard drive is a hard drive?



Not really, to keep the costs down they use cheap drives, plus the big media files are written to the drives in a different way on a Windows system.

They just fail, within 12 months, every time.

The source is from me. I've worked with three clients in the past year who ignored my advice and built up existing Dell or HP rigs, rather than switch to Mac like I advised. Plus I know of many more, certainly more than 15 or so these past three years.

All of them ended up spending much more in the end, to get the thing working, losing many hours of valuable machine time.

None of the Mac systems had a problem, beyond the initial driver set ups and calibration (which is a headache for all new systems using third party HD cards).


----------



## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> Sorry, but if you can't be arsed to read the Engadget article after charging into this thread,  I'm not going to do it for you.



So that's another failure to answer the question again.

I've read the engadget article. Perhaps you'll do me the courtesy of linking to the comments where they've suggested a more cost effective like for like pc Nehalem 8-core processor workstation

I'm not sure why you're being so evasive or unwilling to link tbh.


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Y'see I think you're pushing it too hard there PK. Video editing's no longer the domain of ultra expensive machines only.



HD editing, cutting big programmes (i.e. 50 hours of footage) certainly is.

(edit - to be able to take live incoming full quality HD through a card is, for sure)



> Mac Pros have the latest, greatest and most expensive components, but it's possible to get last year's models on the pc and mac side for cheaper. And, as you know from your own vintage kit, they're still useable.



Sure, but my 5 year old G5 would need upgrading now if it were my only machine. Keeping up with the latest software you'd need this Mac Pro to take advantage of the software's full capabilities.

For a company relying on these machines for their profits - and where they often recoup the costs of the machine in less than 2 weeks - to upgrade is a no brainer once things start to slow down.

I try as much as possible to reinstall and recycle good G5 machines, and indeed G4 machines for sub-HD level work, but a company looking to do big stuff, and have huge screens attached, multi VTR switching, all that shit, makes sense to have something that won't struggle.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> I've read the engadget article. Perhaps you'll do me the courtesy of linking to the comments where they've suggested a more cost effective like for like pc Nehalem 8-core processor workstation


Can't you read them yourself? I'd imagine there's a few people far more knowledgeable than you posting up comments there - despite your patronising dismissive comments - but I've no interest in getting into a nitpicking hour of spec-gazing. And why are you solely banging on about the Nehalem 8-core processor? 


pk said:


> I've said before, you show me an equivalent Microsoft system that is as reliable and as swift for the same money and I'll snap it up, many of my clients would prefer to have edit kit that they can network with office machines, journo laptops, etc. which isn't easy with Mac-PC hybrids.


Yeah, because you're _truly_ objective when it comes to weighing up the pros and cons of Windows machines, aren't you?   

So can you actually back up this astonishing 'Dell's fail in 10 months' claim, or did you just make it up?





pk said:


> They just fail, within 12 months, every time.


Oh. They've just gained an extra 2 months of life!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 19, 2009)

I'm a director for youth charity which does a lot of filming and editing for various political orgs etc, we use Macs (I did the research when we were buying our new equipment). I'd never buy a PC for professional video editing.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 19, 2009)

I want to see blood by lunchtime, boys.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

Mind you, given the choice, I'd take the Mac Pro over a windows machine.


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I'm a director for youth charity which does a lot of filming and editing for various political orgs etc, we use Macs (I did the research when we were buying our new equipment). I'd never buy a PC for professional video editing.



Wise decision.


----------



## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> Can't you read them yourself? I'd imagine there's a few people far more knowledgeable than you posting up comments there - despite your patronising dismissive comments - but I've no interest in getting into a nitpicking hour of spec-gazing. And why are you solely banging on about the Nehalem 8-core processor?



I think you just showed your ignorance there then. The Nehalem is a huge improvement over Intel's previous workstation/server chips, offering massive gains in potential, particularly when more's done to optimise multicore performance. It's also vastly more expensive at the mo

As for desperately patronising, you still didn't do me the courtesy of linking to any examples or providing any examples, resorting to snipes and evasiveness instead. I read the whole of that engadget thread and there are some decent posters on there, which makes your misreading of them slightly mystifying. Or maybe it doesn't given your suspicious aversion to linking to the comments.

Here's a selection for you, the most informed of which actually tend to back PK up:



> ou do know that only one of the CPUs here costs like 1k$, right?
> So it definitely ain't better to build, cause you can get normal support from Apple plus a great OS without any hacks.
> I thought that building is best to keep prices down as much as possible and most custom builds come to around 1.5k$. Now just the CPUs costing over 2k$ you definitely blow your price point for building.
> 
> ...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 19, 2009)

pk said:


> Wise decision.



Wisdom based on a couple of months of research. We had a fair amount to spend, researched various different set ups, spoke with professional people in different fields (freelance, media, film makers amongst others) and two names came up for our needs: Mac for editing, Sony Z1 for filming.

Every single source I or colleagues spoke with said do not buy PC or build your own for this type of work. Not one one. A few even laughed at the suggestion.


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> Yeah, because you're _truly_ objective when it comes to weighing up the pros and cons of Windows machines, aren't you?



More objective than you. Clearly.

It's my job. Again, you're out of your depth.



> So can you actually back up this astonishing 'Dell's fail in 10 months' claim, or did you just make it up?Oh. They've just gained an extra 2 months of life!



Without posting up the names of the companies involved, or the edit staff who have had to phone me desperately seeking advice when things go tits up (approx 15 calls from anxious clients this year using Windows systems compared to NONE using Mac, and I set up way more Macs than PC systems) you'll have to take my word for it.

You can choose not to believe me if you like, but I know you know as much about HD editing as I know about programming in Fortran 5.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

pk said:


> You can choose not to believe me if you like, but I know you know as much about HD editing as I know about programming in Fortran 5.


It's always great to hear you boast about your particular niche talents, and it's always a pleasure to see you twist threads around to put you in that position.

Much obliged as ever.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2009)

Compared to their laptops, which for the spec are a ripoff, the Mac Pro's (this gen and previous) are quite good value from Apple.

I prefer Mac's for video editing, mostly because I prefer the software. I dont buy the idea that Dells will fail within 10/12 months, there is no particular reason why that should be true, although of course certain specific models could have specific issues which cause failure. All the same its a bullshit comment, propaganda, overstated opinion, or complete lie.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> I read the whole of that engadget thread and there are some decent posters on there, which makes your misreading of them slightly mystifying.


LOL. Aren't you a bit giddy after that speedy 360 degree spin around? Look what you said earlier:



			
				tarannau said:
			
		

> Since when has engadget been an accuracy bible rather than a breathless gadgetboy site? And you're seriously considering pointing to the comments as a decent source of credible info?





elbows said:


> I dont buy the idea that Dells will fail within 10/12 months, there is no particular reason why that should be true, although of course certain specific models could have specific issues which cause failure. All the same its a bullshit comment, propaganda, overstated opinion, or complete lie.


Yep. It's a ridiculous comment to make.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> Mind you, given the choice, I'd take the Mac Pro over a windows machine.


Just in case anyone missed it.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 19, 2009)

Oh, BURN!


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Wisdom based on a couple of months of research. We had a fair amount to spend, researched various different set ups, spoke with professional people in different fields (freelance, media, film makers amongst others) and two names came up for our needs: Mac for editing, Sony Z1 for filming.
> 
> Every single source I or colleagues spoke with said do not buy PC or build your own for this type of work. Not one one. A few even laughed at the suggestion.



Sony Z1 cameras put out huge files, and they aren't even full res HD, they're HDV as opposed to HDCam.

Anyone looking to edit HDCam projects on a sub-$7000 Windows system would be politely advised by me to look toward the Mac systems.

I tend not to laugh at my clients, even in the face of hopeless optimism!


----------



## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> LOL. Aren't you a bit giddy after that speedy 360 degree spin around? Look what you said earlier:
> .



 

That's piss weak. Where is the contradiction between saying that engadget is a 'gadgetboy' site not known for its balanced comments section and suggesting that a few of the contributors are decent. You could say the same about P&P here

Frankly you've acted like a right petty tit here. Twisting PK's and my words for effect, pointing to supposed criticisms of the cost and then not having the nuts to actually link to parts of the comments where it supposedly gives decent comparable alternatives to the mac pro. I suspect that the reason was that you realised, upon rereading,  that PK actually has a point here.

It's also telling that KE and Elbows, not founder members of the PK fanboi club, conclude much the same thing. It'd be nice if you could concede the same for a change.


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> It's always great to hear you boast about your particular niche talents, and it's always a pleasure to see you twist threads around to put you in that position.
> 
> Much obliged as ever.



I'm not boasting, for fucks sake, I'm pointing out why you have no basis whatsoever to deny what I'm saying.

I've been doing this a lot longer than you've been designing websites, so how about you just accept my word for it, or (gasp!) prove me wrong with a simple like-for-like price comparison, instead of twisting my words to make it look like I'm just bragging?


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> That's piss weak. Where is the contradiction between saying that some of the posters on a 'gadgetboy' site not known for its balanced comments section and suggesting that a few of the contributors are decent.


Nice twist, but your actual words were: _"And you're seriously considering pointing to the comments as a decent source of credible info?"_


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 19, 2009)

There really is no better geek fight than Mac vs PC


----------



## Crispy (Mar 19, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> There really is no better geek fight than Mac vs PC


Especially when it's ed vs tarannau and pk. I'd pay to watch this shit live.


----------



## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> Nice twist, but your actual words were: _"And you're seriously considering pointing to the comments as a decent source of credible info?"_



And I still wouldn't. But seeing as you made great store about these informed posters (who apparently know better than me or PK) making comments which contradicted the view that the mac pro was compeitively priced you didn't leave much option. You could have simply linked to the comments you agreed with and made it much easier, but you didn't for some reason. I suspect that you knew that they didn't hold up to scrutiny, hence your remarkable hesitance at publishing anything of substance.

By all means feel free to link to cheaper comparable alternatives to the mac pro or provide other facts to contradict me. So far you've produced nothing but sneers and jack all of any note despite repeated requests. You are allowed to admit that you may have it wrong here.



<expects evasive, sneering  answer about 'not being bothered' and fuck all factual again>


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 19, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Especially when it's ed vs tarannau and pk. I'd pay to watch this shit live.



We could film it (in HD, naturally), then get them to edit the footage on their chosen format, see who does the best job


----------



## Crispy (Mar 19, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> We could film it (in HD, naturally), then get them to edit the footage on their chosen format, see who does the best job


What the fuck would you know bees? You'd use the wrong camera ROLLEYES


----------



## Structaural (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> The Mac Pro is sold as a consumer machine and that's what it's being compared to.



It's not you know. The iMacs are the consumer line. The give away is the 'Pro' at the end.


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

elbows said:


> Compared to their laptops, which for the spec are a ripoff, the Mac Pro's (this gen and previous) are quite good value from Apple.
> 
> I prefer Mac's for video editing, mostly because I prefer the software. I dont buy the idea that Dells will fail within 10/12 months, there is no particular reason why that should be true, although of course certain specific models could have specific issues which cause failure. All the same its a bullshit comment, propaganda, overstated opinion, or complete lie.



How many Dell systems have you had to work with, or had to deal with clients freaking out as a result of tight arsed bosses who think they can save money buy opting for Dell?

I'll admit, there are HP configurations that (eventually) can be coaxed into doing the job, albeit with daily crashes and odd error messages, but they are way more expensive.

I used Dell as an example as a configuration which looks comparable on paper for roughly the same money - more or less, but is absolutely hopeless when used for anything of a higher resolution than DVCam, which is a REALLY dated format now compared to HD.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 19, 2009)

Crispy said:


> What the fuck would you know bees? You'd use the wrong camera ROLLEYES



I'd be doing the sound YOU CLUELESS MAC USING BASTARD


----------



## Crispy (Mar 19, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I'd be doing the sound YOU CLUELESS MAC USING BASTARD


You back that up. Links please, thank you so much you wriggler you.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> And I still wouldn't. But seeing as you made great store about these informed posters (who apparently know better than me or PK)


Where did I say they were more informed than pk please? Thanks.

As for the pricing, I've already said that, "if you're convinced that it's absolutely impossible to get a PC system of similar spec to the one listed in the article then I'll just nod my head." So there you have it. If you say it's not possible and there's nothing on the planet available for less than I'll take your word for it.


pk said:


> I'm not boasting, for fucks sake, I'm pointing out why you have no basis whatsoever to deny what I'm saying.


Thing is, you immediately pick up general threads and promptly head off into your particular niche area of expertise, throw in a few wild and frankly ridiculous statements about anything that isn't a Mac and then refuse to budge from discussing anything other than _extreme_ high end stuff - which is most cases is completely inappropriate.

You've even done it on threads where people have just asked about making a little home video on their Windows machines.

The Mac Pro in question may well be used for high end video and I've no doubt you know everything there is to know in the known universe on that topic, but it's also sold as a _consumer_ machine, so it seems entirely reasonable to attempt to frame a discussion within that context. Sadly that seems impossible, as you keep on mistaking this board for the "High End HD Professional Forum."

Oh well.


----------



## Structaural (Mar 19, 2009)

Not this again though, didn't we have this two years ago with the 'built-my-own-gaming- rig-for-five-pounds' brigade? That endgadget review was rubbish anyway, no Cinebench benchmarks and essentially reviewing it like a gaming rig. Everyone switches into window/vista to do gaming because the drivers are crap on the OS X side.

Apple workstations are very competitive when compared with their PC counterparts (which would be HP workstations), those chips scream when rendering and doing processor intensive stuff (not GPU intensive stuff). It is not a gaming machine (though you can use it as one as well and it's pretty good - but bloody overpriced for that). It is not a consumer machine. It is built for high-end 64-bit Pro apps, to be silent and easily accessible (loving the new easily removed processor/memory chip caddy) with top-end motherboards and memory and work all day and all year without failing.

As I said before Apple could do with selling a mid-price tower but they're too  greedy and know that 70% of their macpro customers would buy that instead.



tarannau said:


> Here's a selection for you, the most informed of which actually tend to back PK up:




This was my favourite:



> Generic Mac Pro trolling for n00bs:
> 
> -"I can't believe anyone would pay xxxx for this! It doesn't even come with (peripheral/sufficient RAM/ adequate video card)! I could build a custom (gaming rig/editing rig) for xxxx (preferably at least $1‚000 less) AND it would come with a (proprietary media format) drive!
> 
> ...


----------



## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

Crispy said:


> What the fuck would you know bees? You'd use the wrong camera ROLLEYES



Listen fuckwad. There are basically identical cameras for much cheaper and your camera manufacturer is vastly overpriced. I read it somewhere on a camera site, from people more qualified by you. I can't link to them or provide any evidence for some reason, but they exist I tells you.

(this isn't actually a mac vs pc thread, for me at least. More reality vs a certain poster's inherent dislike and hyperbolic bias against Apple)


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> There really is no better geek fight than Mac vs PC



I'm not even doing that - this is about the Pro end of the market for which the machine in question is being aimed.

At the moment, there is no Windows equivalent for the same money that will happily do the same job. None whatsoever.

You'd have to buy a specially configured system, along with proprietary capture/output cards, from Avid or lesser used and leftfield systems such as Canopus.

And they'd cost a shitload more than a straightforward, out-of-the-box solution such as the Mac Pro/FCP package that, in my opinion, without question would do the job far, far better, quicker, and without crashing or taking up half a rack of shelf space.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 19, 2009)

Crispy said:


> You back that up. Links please, thank you so much you wriggler you.



You wouldn't be able to read them if I did, your outdated format would display them WRONG.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

Structaural said:


> It's not you know. The iMacs are the consumer line. The give away is the 'Pro' at the end.


Really. So MacBook Pros are only bought and used by professionals?


----------



## Crispy (Mar 19, 2009)

Face
^^^^^
palm, fist, broken glass


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> (this isn't actually a mac vs pc thread, for me at least. More reality vs a certain poster's inherent dislike and hyperbolic bias against Apple)


Yes! And what better evidence could there be for that dreadful, uncontrollable bias and sheer loathing of Apple than this damning post, repeated no less than twice in the last hour: 






			
				editor said:
			
		

> _Mind you, given the choice, I'd take the Mac Pro over a windows machine._


and it gets worse:






			
				editor said:
			
		

> That new Mac Pro looks fucking lovely.


Burn him! Bring out the iMob!


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Face
> ^^^^^
> palm, fist, broken glass


No, come on play ball. Do you think sticking 'Pro' on a laptop stops it being a consumer device?


----------



## Bob_the_lost (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> Yes! And what better evidence could there be for that dreadful, uncontrollable bias and sheer loathing of Apple than this damning post, repeated no less than twice in the last hour: and it gets worse:Burn him! Bring out the iMob!



Damned with faint praise is the term you're looking for...



> That new Mac Pro looks fucking lovely. _Wildly over priced of course and it hasn't even got BluRay, but still lush to look at._


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

By the way, are we all having fun here?

It's making my morning simply fly along.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

Bob_the_lost said:


> Damned with faint praise is the term you're looking for...


I'd like to be damned with faint praise like that. Classy, but expensive.


----------



## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

Ah, the old positive comment means that I can excuse the ignorance and bias elsewhere approach.

As in that Margaret Thatcher. Beautiful handbags that my wife would love, but a scum sucking capitalist who raped this country good and proper. At least that Thatcher comment seems accurate I guess.


----------



## Bob_the_lost (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> I'd like to be damned with faint praise like that. Classy, but expensive.


Dreadlocked but cheap?


----------



## Structaural (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> Really. So MacBook Pros are only bought and used by professionals?



That's who they're aimed at. MacBook for consumer level.

Some kids get all the presents though...


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> As in that Margaret Thatcher. Beautiful handbags that my wife would love, but a scum sucking capitalist who raped this country good and proper.


I've got to say, I'm simply loving that last post. Rape, Margaret Thatcher, Capitalism and Handbags all brought together in an unlikely package.

Top work.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> No, come on play ball. Do you think sticking 'Pro' on a laptop stops it being a consumer device?


I think it's a seriously trivial thing to get so wound up about. Who cares?

*throws ball over the fence*


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> I've already said that, "if you're convinced that it's absolutely impossible to get a PC system of similar spec to the one listed in the article then I'll just nod my head." So there you have it. If you say it's not possible and there's nothing on the planet available for less than I'll take your word for it.



Glad to hear it.



> Thing is, you immediately pick up general threads and promptly head off into your particular niche area of expertise, throw in a few wild and frankly ridiculous statements about anything that isn't a Mac and then refuse to budge from discussing anything other than _extreme_ high end stuff - which is most cases is completely inappropriate.



Sometimes, yes. To wind you up, mostly.
But not on this thread. I stated a simple fact, you guffawed and denied it.
I cited examples and both myself and tarranau asked you to back up your cynicism with a simple price comparison, you failed to do so.

And I'm not talking about EXTREME!!11! high end stuff, I'm talking about making videos with high street bought HDV cameras, something that _hundreds of thousands_ of people do.



> You've even done it on threads where people have just asked about making a little home video on their Windows machines.



Occasionally the passion for my work might drift in to opinion on a small low res project, which is of course do-able on a PC. But so what?
Why is it of such burning importance to you?



> The Mac Pro in question may well be used for high end video and I've no doubt you know everything there is to know in the known universe on that topic, but it's also sold as a _consumer_ machine, so it seems entirely reasonable to attempt to frame a discussion within that context. Sadly that seems impossible, as you keep on mistaking this board for the "High End HD Professional Forum."



It's sold as a Pro machine, and as such is not "ridiculously priced".

Accept that and we can all shake hands and move on, but saying I claim to know everything there is to know in the known universe, even though I clearly do being that I am the fucking guru of all things HD, is just making you look daft.

Mac Pro systems are for high end users. Get over it.

You don't hear me attacking you for using PC machines for doing web design, because I haven't a fucking clue about the type of machine appropriate for that niche work. So just show me the same courtesy.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

Structaural said:


> That's who they're aimed at. MacBook for consumer level.
> 
> Some kids get all the presents though...


Sure, but the point is that calling something 'pro' is often a meaningless exercise. I've got loads of things scattered around the house with 'pro' labels stuck on them and I'm a bumbling amateur at most things.

I think I might even have a 'pro' coffee grinder somewhere.


----------



## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> I've got to say, I'm simply loving that last post. Rape, Margaret Thatcher, Capitalism and Handbags all brought together in an unlikely package.
> 
> Top work.



I liked that too. I would have used Hitler and shoes, but Thatcher seemed more Godwin for the purposes of this board


----------



## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> Sure, but the point is that calling something 'pro' is often a meaningless exercise. I've got loads of things scattered around the house with 'pro' labels stuck on them and I'm a bumbling amateur at most things.
> 
> I think I might even have a 'pro' coffee grinder somewhere.



But it's actually not in Apple's case is it? The pro line has always been well adapted to the creative professionals market.

There's an element of brand trust here. If Porsche release a special 'sports' tuned 911 model for professionals you tend to believe it'll be adapted for the track. If Kia release a sporting version of the 'Pride' you don't seriously believe that it's fit for speeding around Silverstone.

It's a strange thing to pick out anyway. Very few home users, bar the most completionist power freak, choose to buy a cheesegrater macpro for domestic use.


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> Sure, but the point is that calling something 'pro' is often a meaningless exercise. I've got loads of things scattered around the house with 'pro' labels stuck on them and I'm a bumbling amateur at most things.
> 
> I think I might even have a 'pro' coffee grinder somewhere.



Now you're just being daft.

Just concede that the new Mac Pro is not "wildly overpriced" when you take into account its actual capabilities and we can all kiss and make up.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> I liked that too. I would have used Hitler and shoes, but Thatcher seemed more Godwin for the purposes of this board


Phew. I think we're all finished now.

Right. What shall we argue about now?

Back in the day of newsgroups, we used to organise 'awaydays' to other newsgroups, where we'd all pop in, argue about whatever the thing was about, and then leave as quickly as we came in.

It was rather fun.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

pk said:


> Just concede that the new Mac Pro is not "wildly overpriced" when you take into account its actual capabilities and we can all kiss and make up.


I think it's just _wild_ actually.

I want to party with one. All. Night. Long.


----------



## tarannau (Mar 19, 2009)

pk said:


> Just concede that the new Mac Pro is not "wildly overpriced" when you take into account its actual capabilities and we can all kiss and make up.



What do you say Ed?

<pucker, pucker now. Pk's waiting>


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> Phew. I think we're all finished now.
> 
> Right. What shall we argue about now?
> 
> ...



We used to do that here too, an organised mass troll of some Xtian fundie group or some such shit. Great fun.

Get banned for it nowadays.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 19, 2009)

pk said:


> Sony Z1 cameras put out huge files, and they aren't even full res HD, they're HDV as opposed to HDCam.
> 
> Anyone looking to edit HDCam projects on a sub-$7000 Windows system would be politely advised by me to look toward the Mac systems.
> 
> I tend not to laugh at my clients, even in the face of hopeless optimism!



Heh, we weren't clients just after advice, the Z1 was good enough for the price (a couple of broadcasters told us they'd be fine too).


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Heh, we weren't clients just after advice, the Z1 was good enough for the price (a couple of broadcasters told us they'd be fine too).



Oh, the Z1 (and subsequent update) is a great camera, probably the best out there for the money, some stunning features on it.

I just meant the Windows edit system is fussy about the HDV files it puts out, as well as the Sony HDV iLink data.

Mac kits just work, straight out of the box, with no problems.

I reckon they're filled with holy goblins or some such magick.


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

tarannau said:


> What do you say Ed?
> 
> <pucker, pucker now. Pk's waiting>



Unlikely innit.


----------



## Structaural (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> Phew. I think we're all finished now.
> 
> Right. What shall we argue about now?
> 
> ...


----------



## Structaural (Mar 19, 2009)

The IT bloke is setting up one of the directors Macbook Air. Man, I didn't realise it was that tiny, lovely looking bit of kit. 

The main IT bloke is complaining because he had to buy an ethernet adapter for the _1 USB_ port so he could connect it to the network.  Nice for the plane, fuck all use anywhere else...


----------



## Kanda (Mar 19, 2009)

Why doesn't the main IT bloke have provisions for wireless???? He wouldn't need to bother.

4 of our Researchers have the Air, they're nice, but not nice enough for me to warrant one, I'd rather the Vaio 8P I think, which my boss has just bought.


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

That Air is a gimmick, not much else.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> Back in the day of newsgroups, we used to organise 'awaydays' to other newsgroups, where we'd all pop in, argue about whatever the thing was about, and then leave as quickly as we came in.



The uk.music.rave "summer holidays" were always good fun, particularly when we visited uk.rec.sheds


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> The uk.music.rave "summer holidays" were always good fun, particularly when we visited uk.rec.sheds


My picture of some sheds is still up there somewhere. Sheds was a great newsgroup.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 19, 2009)

editor said:


> My picture of some sheds is still up there somewhere. Sheds was a great newsgroup.



I loved the thread where they posted up sightings of sheds on different tv shows


----------



## Structaural (Mar 19, 2009)

Kanda said:


> Why doesn't the main IT bloke have provisions for wireless???? He wouldn't need to bother.
> 
> 4 of our Researchers have the Air, they're nice, but not nice enough for me to warrant one, I'd rather the Vaio 8P I think, which my boss has just bought.



He's only got wireless for the boss's Blackberry  it's completely firewalled from everything inside the company.

Yeah that Air is for First Class posers, but I was surprised at it diddyness.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2009)

The Pro vs Consumer argument is further blurred by the marketing term 'prosumer' that seems popular these days, and does reflect a partial truth than many non-professionals want to at least dabble with tasks & software that would previously only have been used by professionals.

As for choice of editing platform, I would think a major factor would be what editing software the users are familiar with, as learning the pro skills with a particular software editing package is usually a more expensive investment than the cost of the workstation anyway.


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

elbows said:


> As for choice of editing platform, I would think a major factor would be what editing software the users are familiar with, as learning the pro skills with a particular software editing package is usually a more expensive investment than the cost of the workstation anyway.



Not necessarily. I don't think Final Cut Pro would be quite the formidable tool it is now had they not turned a blind eye to the amount of "evaluation copies" of version 3.

Editors were looking for a way of cutting in Avid quality/accuracy at home, but without spending £10,000 or more on a Media Composer set up.

Back then of course Avid was only on Mac, no PC software available.

Along came the G3 and FCP and all of a sudden online editing was available to the individual for £1500.

Learning the pro skills in a pro environment in a week or less might be expensive, and there are training packages by the relatively newly conceived Apple Training Specialists that are way too pricey for what they are.

It all boils down to what the industry uses - and that's either Avid or FCP.
No point spending time learning a package that will become defunct.

Best way to learn is buy the kit yourself and do a film. 
Learn at your own pace and work through the instruction book.
Then wonder why you bothered, there's thousands of editors who can't get work and you're at the end of the queue!


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2009)

Your time is still worth money, so there is still a cost to learning something different But I had not considered just how few apps there are at the higher end of video editing, so its not as much of an issue as I stated.

Most of the niggles I had with Windows-based video editing were more to do with software glitches or incompatibilities than hardware failure. When I switched to Apple I was expecting this to be a lot better, it was a bit better but there were still some stupid bugs between video camera format, final export format, quicktime, the OS & Final Cut sometimes when Apple did updates, so the experience as not quite as polished as Id expected but certainly better than Windows.


----------



## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

elbows said:


> Your time is still worth money, so there is still a cost to learning something different But I had not considered just how few apps there are at the higher end of video editing, so its not as much of an issue as I stated.



It does boil down to two, really. That may change, Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere and Pinnacle are close behind, but making threats to the big boys at no time soon.



> Most of the niggles I had with Windows-based video editing were more to do with software glitches or incompatibilities than hardware failure.



Software glitches caused by a bloated OS, in my experience.



> When I switched to Apple I was expecting this to be a lot better, it was a bit better but there were still some stupid bugs between video camera format, final export format, quicktime, the OS & Final Cut sometimes when Apple did updates, so the experience as not quite as polished as Id expected but certainly better than Windows.



Which camera, out of interest?


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2009)

pk said:


> It does boil down to two, really. That may change, Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere and Pinnacle are close behind, but making threats to the big boys at no time soon.
> 
> Software glitches caused by a bloated OS, in my experience.
> 
> Which camera, out of interest?



Well Im not actually a video professional myself, just a hobbyist who is a general IT professional so I like to mess with powerful stuff thats way out of my depth. Most of my Windows video editing experiences were quite a long time ago using Premiere, and a Matrox RT2000 card that was a complete nightmare which illustrated the worst of PC/windows video editing hell. 

Both the next Windows and next OS X look like they are geared for performance, so the future of video editing looks rather bright to me right now. Hoping for an announcement about next Final Cut Studio next month, Im more into compositing (with Apple Motion) than editing to be honest.

The camera wasnt actually an issue I experienced directly, I followed videoblogging closely when it started to take off, and always heard great things about Macs and how easy it all was. So I got one, and the reality for me was not bad, but I did see more minor issues than I was expecting, often reported by other people. I think they were mostly caused by using newer camera formats before Apple fully supported them, though there was at least one quicktime or OS update which seemed to cause quite a few Final Cut Pro issues, but not stuff everyone would fall foul of. I became a right geek about video formats that were suitable for the web (ie h.264) and there were a few stupid quicktime export issues, such as getting res/pixel aspect ratio wrong for certain NTSC formats, that I saw others suffer from and it made me conclude that Apple sometimes make mistakes with video stuff too. I was also miffed that for enthusiast non-pro users, the issue of interlacing when exporting for the web above 320x240 res wasnt really dealt with by Apple's non-pro solutions, causing some non-codec-geeks to end up with nasty combing interlace horror in their higher res stuff.


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## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

A lot of the nightmares you mention are bourne out of serious codec problems that arose when both Mac and PC were refusing to release the correct protocols and codes for each other. This issue was at its most troublesome in the late nineties and early part of this decade, though mostly sorted now.

Basically they were competing bitterly for web video format domination, and in their futile struggle were ultimately pipped to the post by the Flash method we know and love today (Youtube, etc). Serves 'em right, the twats.

Manufacturers of cameras are no different, Sony being the market leader refused to give full details of its version of the iLink (Firewire) protocol to JVC, Panasonic, which meant drivers had to be found for each camera before the full function capture/print could happen.

Fortunately this is an issue swiftly addressed in most cases these days, so the headache is all but gone. 

Shame really, I made a lot of money sorting out the big firms back then!!



> Premiere, and a Matrox RT2000 card



Ouch, that must have hurt!


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## elbows (Mar 19, 2009)

Codec wars brought their own problems, the ones I mentioned were not so much that as just specific bugs or oversights on Apple's part when it came to how h.264 and various ipod/iphone presets are exported from quicktime, stuff like that.

Ive certainly enjoyed the rise of h.264, 4 years ago I was hoping it would become almost the defacto standard, and its well on the way now. In the early days because Apple were early to adopt it, and because its often been wrapped in .mov format rather than .mp4, quite a lot of windows users saw h.264 as some Apple thing. But it was actually Apple using a standard that was not unique to them, as time has shown. Now that flash can handle h.264, and its going to be in silverlight 3 and Windows 7, not to mention all the recording and playback hardware that now uses h.264 in some way, the perception that it was some Apple thing is vanishing.

Many Windows users didnt like Quicktime software much, which did not help h.264's march to dominance, but Microsoft acidentally helped h.264 because of how much a lot of people hate .wmv, and because Microsoft stopped updating their wmv player for OS X. And then on the console battlefield Sony helped h.264 by supporting it on the psp and ps3, so Microsoft felt the need to add it to xbox360. And Adobe adding it to Flash has made Microsoft add it to silverlight. Nice to see competition between corporations having a positive effect in the end!


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## pk (Mar 19, 2009)

Most of the web stuff I output is H.264, so yeah, I guess you're right, certainly seems to be the best overall option - mainly because neither Apple or Microsoft are squabbling over its ownership.

.wmv - LOL!! 

Anyway - maybe another thread... this is Apple news and rumours... we're entering geekland


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 20, 2009)

I like the mock up of a Apple netbook:








> A new rumor from _SmartHouse_ is making the rounds today, with alleged sources claiming LG has partnered with Apple to make OLED displays for a new iPhone and iPod touch, a Taiwan-manufactured netbook that's reportedly already in working prototype stage, and a device with a wafer-thin screen that would link wirelessly to a content-providing box similar to Apple TV. Sure, some of that makes sense, but let's add a good bit of context here. This article in question was written by _SmartHouse _veteran David Richards, who in the past has brought us such winners as PlayStation 4 launching in 2008, a Xbox 360 equipped with HD DVD, and our favorite, Apple producing its own soap opera series exclusively for the iPod. We're not saying the Apple-LG partnership is entirely out of the realm of possibility, but this guy doesn't exactly have the best track record.
> 
> Furthermore, this doesn't jibe with two separate reports from _Dow Jones Newswire _and _Commercial Times / DigiTimes_ that Quanta is providing the screens for an upcoming Apple netbook launching in Q3. Lastly, with today's announcement that LG is licensing Kodak's OLED technology for future devices, we get the feeling the company isn't the best suited to meet Cupertino's demands. Seems like this week's barrage of Apple news has gotten to people's heads, honestly -- keep a sharp eye!


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## Crispy (Mar 20, 2009)

Not with that trackpad 
Nice look though


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 20, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Not with that trackpad
> Nice look though



Yeh...


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## bouncer_the_dog (Mar 20, 2009)

Want one... whatever it looks like. I want a tiny portable mac. Small than the air but bigger than the iPhone


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## editor (Mar 20, 2009)

Apple's sales have taken a hefty hike downwards, Steve Ballmer is on hand to trot out the hyperbole:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/20/ballmer-says-tide-has-turned-on-apple-paying-500-more-to-get/


----------



## editor (Mar 24, 2009)

Of some note, I believe:





> Lenovo have just unveiled two new ThinkStation desktops, the S20 and D20, both of which are designed exclusively for specialized professionals in fields such as computer-aided design and digital content creation. Within, you'll find your choice of Intel's latest Nehalem-based Xeon chips (yep, the same 5500 and 3500 series as in Apple's newest Mac Pro), NVIDIA's Tesla C1060 GPU platform (or an ATI FirePro, if you prefer) and Windows Vista or RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.2 running the show. Hit up the gallery below for the specifications breakdown, and as for pricing, you'll find 'em in Q1 for *$1,070* and *$1,550,* respectively.
> http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/24/lenovo-thinkstation-s20-d20-sport-new-xeon-cpus-tesla-c1060-g/


----------



## Crispy (Mar 24, 2009)

Well those prices will be for the lowest-spec models. But it's good to have a comparison. I'll do a driect like-for-like here if I can:

EDIT: Can't get specific pricing to make an equivalent spec Lenovo


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## editor (Mar 24, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Well those prices will be for the lowest-spec models. But it's good to have a comparison. I'll do a driect like-for-like here if I can:
> 
> EDIT: Can't get specific pricing to make an equivalent spec Lenovo


I'm thinking that the Lenovo might prove a useful - and probably cheaper - alternative for Mac users. Their build quality is easily every bit as good as Apple, although perhaps their austere looks may not please some fashion conscious types. After buying a second hand Thinkpad, I was blown away by the quality.


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## tarannau (Mar 24, 2009)

As far as I can tell, it's $300 cheaper for the 'base' high end Lenovo than the lowest MacPro which are roughly comparable (4 core Nehalems)

Without the rest of the spec it's tough to say which is the better value. But I wouldn't expect huge savings tbh. Don't agree about Thinkpad quality generally either tbh - having owned both platforms, my two businesss Thinkpads were less reliable and far more chunky than my MBP. The fact that IBM staff generally opted for MBP's rather than Thinkpads after they sold the brand on tends to tell its own story.

Dell's new ultrathin laptop is a case in point. Slightly thinner than the Air, but slower, heavier and more expensive. And ugly.


----------



## editor (Mar 24, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Don't agree about Thinkpad quality generally either tbh - having owned both platforms, my two businesss Thinkpads were less reliable and far more chunky than my MBP..


Well, I wouldn't expect you to say anything different tbh, but ThinkPads generally enjoy an excellent reputation for durability, and offer some of the best warranties and product support available for businesses.

I can't think of any other manufacturer who would send me 10 free restore CDs on a three year old, second hand laptop.


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## Crispy (Mar 24, 2009)

Build quality is much of a muchness these days - they all come from the same components and factories. But as ed says, it's the support that sets Thinkpads apart.


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## editor (Mar 24, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Build quality is much of a muchness these days - they all come from the same components and factories. But as ed says, it's the support that sets Thinkpads apart.


The MacBooks are really well built - certainly better than most PC laptops - and ThinkPads really are in a different league compared to most. 

I don't know many laptop manufacturers that offer full user guides to stripping their products down to just about the bare components either.


----------



## tarannau (Mar 24, 2009)

Well, I can only speak for personal experience, but I've never had problem with support for either. IBM/Lenovo were fine, even if their control nipple and hard drive played up for me. And I've had a dodgy battery from Apple

Lenovo still does well on reliability, as does Apple. I don't think it's fair to say that  build quality and design is much of muchness to be honest - here's one reliability study showing marked differences between Apple and Lenovo compared to Dell

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20071023005996&newsLang=en


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## Crispy (Mar 24, 2009)

ok, that's a big gap  I stand corrected


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## editor (Mar 24, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Lenovo still does well on reliability, as does Apple. I don't think it's fair to say that  build quality and design is much of muchness to be honest - here's one reliability study showing marked differences between Apple and Lenovo compared to Dell


And here's a far more recent one from this this month:





> At the close of 2008, Apple had secured the lead with the fewest number of service calls. However, Apple slipped into second place while ASUS made a surprise leap into the top spot, with IBM/LENOVO sharing the lead....
> 
> The RESCUECOM Computer Reliability Report calculated PC reliability scores based on a sample of 15,000+ calls throughout the quarter. The report reveals the two most important measures of reliability:
> 
> ...


And here's an older one showing Lenovo on top of Apple.


> A study of over 20,000 support calls has shown that Apple and Lenovo make the most reliable laptops.
> 
> Computer support agency Rescuecom studied the call data from its centres and cross referenced it against the market share of brands in different US locations. The results on a weighted index showed Lenovo the winner at +243, Apple at +201 then HP at +12, Dell at +4 and Gateway at -12.
> 
> http://www.itpro.co.uk/95801/lenovo-and-apple-top-reliability-poll


It is possible for another manufacturer to be as good as Apple, you know.


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## tarannau (Mar 24, 2009)

Don't buy Dell seems to be the lesson of those studies. Thinkpads and Macs are premium laptops, even the consumer level macbooks


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## editor (Mar 24, 2009)

Crispy said:


> ok, that's a big gap  I stand corrected


That's from Oct 2007.


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## tarannau (Mar 24, 2009)

And Apple are still near the top on the second study, with Lenovo very close and Dell way behind. It's a fairly indicative trend backed up by other reports.


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## editor (Mar 24, 2009)

tarannau said:


> And Apple are still near the top on the second study, with Lenovo very close and Dell way behind. It's a fairly indicative trend backed up by other reports.


Yes, it completely and perfectly backs up my earlier assertion that Lenovo's build quality "is easily every bit as good as Apple," regardless of your own personal experiences.

Interestingly, the most recent study has Asus _absolutely miles ahead_ of Apple, who are put into third place behind Lenovo.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 24, 2009)

*Rumors: A new iPhone, a 3G netbook and more*

More rumours.



> New iPhone announcement around mid-June (duh)
> New iPhone will be faster and have a more seamless experience unmatched by any device (could be just talking about 3.0, but we think it’s also a new iPhone)
> U-Verse iPhone application; will allow control of your home DVR (play, pause, rewind, etc.)
> The annual iPhone launch is “becoming a tradition.“
> ...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 24, 2009)

The netbook thing has nothing to do with Apple though.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 24, 2009)

Yeah no idea why they included that in there, think this is a ATT/Apple rumour thing though...


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## editor (Mar 30, 2009)

Here's the latest netbook rumour. Probably bullshit of course, but it's getting a fair bit of coverage. $900 is well pricey.





> But even if it doesn't turn out to be what Apple is widely rumoured to be delivering later this year, it's a decent approximation of what everyone expects from Russian magazine 9to5.
> 
> That means a 10.4-inch WXGA display with LED backlighting, a 1.83GHz Intel Atom processor, 2GB of memory, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics, 64GB of solid state storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, 1x USB and of course, a rechargeable battery.







http://www.t3.com/news/is-this-the-new-macbook-mini?=38505


----------



## Crispy (Mar 30, 2009)

> it just might be a case of guesswork and a few minutes on PhotoShop


Just the slimmest outside chance  It's a whatif, reported second (or is it third?) hand. No weight to it at all.


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## jæd (Mar 30, 2009)

Sounds roughly equivilent to the Sony Series P. Oh, is anyone going to tell T3 that 9-to-5 Mac isn't Russian, but their source on the MacNetBook is...


----------



## editor (Apr 8, 2009)

Here we go....





> Apple refusing royalty-free license to widget patent
> by Tom Krazit
> 
> Apple believes it has a patent that could potentially throw a wrench into an effort to develop a Web standard for updating widgets.
> ...


Off topic a tad, but here's an interesting feature questioning intellectual property laws.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker125.html


----------



## editor (Apr 8, 2009)

Another firm are suing Apple, this time over the multi touch rights. This lot seem to have a better case than most, with one victory already notched up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/technology/companies/09apple.html

Edit: and another, this time backed by the EFF
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/apr/29/apple-itunes


----------



## Pie 1 (May 23, 2009)

Apple store here in Zurich opened yesterday amid more tragic scenes. 
Even the Swiss - _the Swiss_ - were duped into high 5ing & the national broadsheet has a 16 picture feature today 

http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/digital...der-Eroeffnung-des-AppleLadens/story/28140969

They really have somehow got the holy grail of marketing. Even in Cupertino they still must sit back in wonder at it all.


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## editor (May 23, 2009)

Pie 1 said:


> Apple store here in Zurich opened yesterday amid more tragic scenes.
> Even the Swiss - _the Swiss_ - were duped into high 5ing & the national broadsheet has a 16 picture feature today
> 
> http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/digital...der-Eroeffnung-des-AppleLadens/story/28140969
> ...


_What_ a bunch of cunts!







This worshipping of consumerism really is hideous.


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## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

Lets use this thread to talk about the details of today's keynote, rather than swamp the iphone one, yes?


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Yes, makes sense.

So to followup something you said in the other thread:



Crispy said:


> I just have the horrible feeling that some of the fancy new features in snow leopard will require a _slightly_ more up-to-date mac than mine (eg. not quite the right gfx card for quicktime acceleration)



What mac you got?

Most of the fancy features in Snow Leopard are under the bonnet and should benefit anybody with a dualcore intel mac, no matter the graphics card. Many people are likely to notice significant performance improvements on their current hardware, so its similar to Windows 7 vs Vista in this regard.

If developers fully embrace all that Snow Leopard has to offer then yes, GPU power will become more important as it can now be harnessed more easily for general computations, but it will be a while before this becomes too crucial and there is no knowing exactly what apps will take advantage yet, parallel computing doesnt benefit some stuff much after all.


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

You might be right about quicktime acceleration though,I havent looked into that much yet.


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## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

yeah, I have core 2 duo 2.16GHz, so the Grand Central stuff wil be fine. I think my gfx is Radeon X1600 which is ok, but not fantastic.


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## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

This image is getting a bit too familiar


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

The propaganda has begun with laughs at the PCs expense.


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## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/08/phil-schiller-keynote-live-from-wwdc-2009/#continued is a good feed of text and images btw.


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Aha so theyve refreshed the 15" macbook pro and have gone for the built in battery like they did with the 17"


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 8, 2009)

I normally watch these but I find myself really unenthused this time. New iPhone, probably some updated Macbooks, zzz. I'm off to the pub; I expect a proper summary when I return.


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

My god a memory card slot, thats unusual for Apple.


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

No ExpressCard slot on the 15" macbook pro = bad
FW800 on the normal macbook = good


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

elbows said:


> FW800 on the normal macbook = good



Oh they've renamed those to MacBook Pro's too so only the white macbook is just a macbook (non-pro) anymore.

People who have bought a mac laptop in the last 6-9 months may be feeling a bit miffed right now. Will be interesting to see what the UK prices look like.


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## editor (Jun 8, 2009)

Looks like Windows 7 has got them rattled - why else would they feel the need to attack the OS in their own keynote?


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## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

this has to be prepping the way for a new 'cheap' macbook model soon. seems a little crazy leaving just the old white model in that category

they regularly have a pop at windows, ed - nothing new there.


----------



## Badgers (Jun 8, 2009)

No sign of the 'Marmite Mac' yet then?


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Watching this here also: http://live.gdgt.com/2009/06/08/live-wwdc-2009-keynote-coverage/


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

heh, handwriting on the trackpad is nifty. good for chinese/japanese (like that affects me, but hey)


----------



## stupid dogbot (Jun 8, 2009)

elbows said:


> Aha so theyve refreshed the 15" macbook pro and have gone for the built in battery like they did with the 17"



Probably spells the end of my long association with 15" Powerbooks/MBPs, then.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Pfft get the to fucking iPhones ffs!


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Pfft get the to fucking iPhones ffs!



You'll need to wait a bit longer for that, Snow Leopard is something they will talk about for a while, its good, albeit the nature of the new stuff will not make it the most exciting os to demonstrate. And this is a developers conference after all.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

Grand Central is particularly exciting - programming for multicore is notoriously tricky. If GC makes it as easy as it says it does, it will be quite a game-changer


----------



## dirtyfruit (Jun 8, 2009)

elbows said:


> Oh they've renamed those to MacBook Pro's too so only the white macbook is just a macbook (non-pro) anymore.
> 
> People who have bought a mac laptop in the last 6-9 months may be feeling a bit miffed right now. Will be interesting to see what the UK prices look like.



I got the 13" unibody macbook back in november but i don't yet feel gutted. The new 13" has a FW800 and can take more RAM but will probably be about the same price in the UK or a tad less and is now called macbook pro.

Those are the only differences I can see.


----------



## Badgers (Jun 8, 2009)

No iPhone mention yet... 
My upgrade day passed two days ago


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Grand Central is particularly exciting - programming for multicore is notoriously tricky. If GC makes it as easy as it says it does, it will be quite a game-changer



I hope so, its a bit depressing have an 8-core mac pro and it getting so little workout most of the time. Liekwise the 10GB of RAM Ive got in it has hardly been touched so far. Roll on Snow Leopard, nervously waiting for release date.


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## tarannau (Jun 8, 2009)

September and only $29 for an an upgrade in the US. Sounds pretty tempting if I'm honest


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Badgers said:


> No iPhone mention yet...
> My upgrade day passed two days ago



Yeah... I'm only watching all this boring crap about the OS for iPhone news...


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

elbows said:


> I hope so, its a bit depressing have an 8-core mac pro and it getting so little workout most of the time.


well why did you get one then?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Must be tomorrow?


----------



## dirtyfruit (Jun 8, 2009)

Still only 2 usb slots on the 13"!

Fuck SD, i'd much rather have an extra usb.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> well why did you get one then?



I thought I was goingto get into 3D rendering, which does mostly use the 8 cores, but Ive ended up sticking with realtime 3D stuff so far.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Jun 8, 2009)

elbows said:


> I hope so, its a bit depressing have an 8-core mac pro and it getting so little workout most of the time. Liekwise the 10GB of RAM Ive got in it has hardly been touched so far. Roll on Snow Leopard, nervously waiting for release date.



You could run some VMs on it. You probably wouldn't have anything much to do with them, either... but you might feel a bit better.


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Must be tomorrow?



They usually do iphone stuff last, and make a big song and dance about it.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

elbows said:


> They usually do iphone stuff last, and make a big song and dance about it.



Yeah...c'mon! That dragging a contact into a calendar to create an appointment is quite neat. Is it me or has Apple implied some very Palm Synergy like stuff here?


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

damn, $29? I'd actually pay for an OSX upgrade


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

iPhone!!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Yes yes lots of apps, gimme hardware news dammit!


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

Keep forgetting they inroduced Undo as well by shaking it with V3.  Thats very handy,esp when texting.


----------



## tarannau (Jun 8, 2009)

I like the fact that everyone's distinctly unimpressed, judging by the lack of clapping, that MMS has made it onto the platform.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Tethering? Wonder if O2 etc will allow that...


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

well, everyone already knew. utterly lame that AT&T doesn't even support it yet! I guess hardly anyone uses it in USA.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

tarannau said:


> I like the fact that everyone's distinctly unimpressed, judging by the lack of clapping, that MMS has made it onto the platform.



Heh even Engadget have remarked on it:



> 11:02AM The audience is not happy.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Heh even Engadget have remarked on it:



It was AT&T what done caused that with their lack of tethering.

Sure hope O2 support it, its the one thing I miss from previous phones I had that could do it just fine & no extra silly surcharge.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

HTML5 video. interesting. does this mean they're supporting Theora? Or just .mp4 in an Ogg wrapper...


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

elbows said:


> It was AT&T what done caused that with their lack of tethering.
> 
> Sure hope O2 support it, its the one thing I miss from previous phones I had that could do it just fine & no extra silly surcharge.



Yeah just realised...not sure really as o2 are quite big on their dongles, why would they allow the iPhone to undermine that?


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

Its not like I'm not paying!


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> HTML5 video. interesting. does this mean they're supporting Theora? Or just .mp4 in an Ogg wrapper...



May not even be in an ogg wrapper - comapnies playing a bit loose with the spirit of html5 video, ie it may support the tags but not the file format recommendations.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

This I like:



> "Now, if it is lost or stolen, you can send a remote wipe command which will delete all of your data."


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

@elbows : bah, makes the whole idea a bit pointless really.
@KE : yeah, if you fork over 100 quid a year for mobileme.


----------



## tarannau (Jun 8, 2009)

That's a pretty natty way of finding your lost phone. Whether a kindly bystander heeds the 'this iphone is lost, call...' message is another matter.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

Remote wipe is good, but I see no 'explode when next used' option which would be more satisfying.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> @elbows : bah, makes the whole idea a bit pointless really.
> @KE : yeah, if you fork over 100 quid a year for mobileme.



Yes, html5 video tags are going to struggle to displace flash as the most compatible way to embed video on the web.


----------



## tarannau (Jun 8, 2009)

And something to remotely interfere with the phone could be quite good, automatically shouting out 'cunting thief' at regular intervals or something.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

Apple are stringing this out with the 3.0 demo.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

we saw all this last time


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Yeah they are padding this shit out a bit. Give us the skinny on the new hardware dammit.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

christ this is boring. I should have gone home.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Its not like the new hardware is likely to be all that exciting either.


----------



## dogmatique (Jun 8, 2009)

Don't you think it's strange they're not using graphics with a new iphone model in them?  Don't tell me it's not ready yet...


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

dogmatique said:


> Don't you think it's strange they're not using graphics with a new iphone model in them?  Don't tell me it's not ready yet...



Not strange, they arent going to preempt any later hardware announcement by having it appear earlier in the show.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Tom Tom eh? Nice bit of convergance, Tom Tom is the iPod of sat naving...


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

I do think the hardware is coming, and that to show the demo's on it would be very stupid if your leaving it till last.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Sweeet!



> 11:26AM "It will dock the iPhone, you can use in portrait or landscape, and thanks to the accessory framework, we can enhance your GPS data. Finally, we'll power your iPhone as you drive, so you're fully charged when you arrive."


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

Nice car kit, I'm assuming thats got a compass in it?  The v3 software allows for that sort of thing now.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Tom Tom eh? Nice bit of convergance, Tom Tom is the iPod of sat naving...


They will sell plenty of this, no matter the price, which will be high I bet...


----------



## pk (Jun 8, 2009)

Tom Tom, useful if you don't fancy a sat nav AND a phone subscription.


----------



## dogmatique (Jun 8, 2009)

Obviously, but it's still a cockeyed way of demonstrating the phone's new capabilities.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> They will sell plenty of this, no matter the price, which will be high I bet...



How much do think? If it's 70 quid that's a pretty good deal considering...or they may sell low and reap their money back via map sales?


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Sunray said:


> Nice car kit, I'm assuming thats got a compass in it?  The v3 software allows for that sort of thing now.



Dunno, the new iphone is strongly rumoured to have a compass. Cant sat nav in a moving vehicle just use GPS to work out direction anyway?


----------



## editor (Jun 8, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> This I like:





Kid_Eternity said:


> Tom Tom eh? Nice bit of convergance, Tom Tom is the iPod of sat naving...


You've got to give it to Apple. They get an audience whooping about features that have been available on just about every other platform for_ years!_*


*admittedly in not such a pretty package


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

editor said:


> You've got to give it to Apple. They get an audience whooping about features that have been available on just about every other platform for_ years!_*
> 
> 
> **admittedly in not such a pretty package*



The bold being the point.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> They will sell plenty of this, no matter the price, which will be high I bet...



I'll get it if its 100 quid or so for the s/w and the car kit.  Very handy.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

omg. a fluffed demo in an apple keynote?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

The zipcar app is cool.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Crispy said:


> omg. a fluffed demo in an apple keynote?



Its an accurate demonstration of science in the classroom - the experimental data seldom matches up fully with the theory & formula's, thats if my memories of A Level physics are half accurate


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

Well, apart from the TomTom demo, how dull is this..... Come on get on with it.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

would be good if streetcar did one too


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

fuck this I'm going home


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Sunray said:


> Well, apart from the TomTom demo, how dull is this..... Come on get on with it.



If you think this is dull you should see what the rest of the WWDC consists of, developers events arent rock & roll.

Plus everything Apple do will seem a tad dull compared to the original iphone launch methinks.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Final demo. New hardware next?


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

Controlling the guitar I don't own.


----------



## pk (Jun 8, 2009)

Music apps!! Guitar and amp controllers!!


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

More demo fail, heads will roll.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

elbows said:


> If you think this is dull you should see what the rest of the WWDC consists of, developers events arent rock & roll.
> 
> Plus everything Apple do will seem a tad dull compared to the original iphone launch methinks.



I've been to many and the key notes are pretty decent. One MS on we all got some bongos and had bong lessons.  Then there was this huge bouncy castle assault course where you could win prize and they had loads of look alike singers like the lead from Spandau Ballet, who looked and sounded like the real thing.  Free beer and pizza.


----------



## pk (Jun 8, 2009)

June 17th for 3.0 !!!

God stuff, about time too!


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

meh!


----------



## pk (Jun 8, 2009)




----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

iPhone 3GS?


----------



## dogmatique (Jun 8, 2009)

Looks just the same! No front camera, no flash...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

3mp camera? Lame...should be 5mp by now...


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

Its living up to the rumours pretty much exactly so far.


----------



## pk (Jun 8, 2009)

Tap focus video... nice.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

OK, if they put a AMOLED display on this I want it big time.


----------



## editor (Jun 8, 2009)

No flash? That is lame for a phone in mid-2009.


----------



## dogmatique (Jun 8, 2009)

Voice activated dialing?  Oh purlease. 

Now OLED - that _would_ be nice...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

editor said:


> No flash? That is lame for a phone in mid-2009.



I've never really found flashes on mobiles to be worth anything anyway so doesn't bother me.


----------



## pk (Jun 8, 2009)

dogmatique said:


> Voice activated dialing?  Oh purlease.
> 
> Now OLED - that _would_ be nice...



Voice activated everything, by the looks of it.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

Voice activated dialling is necessary for car use because, certainly in the UK at least, you can't answer calls with buttons that are not an original part of the car.


----------



## editor (Jun 8, 2009)

Ah, they've nicked the digital compass off the Android. Now that is good.


----------



## pk (Jun 8, 2009)

Built-in compass confirmed.

Up to 5 hours 3G talk time, 9 hours of WiFI internet. I'll believe it when I see it.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Digital compass, nice.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Good news on the battery life.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

Oh well, no OLED display.

The speed is the most useful thing there.


----------



## pk (Jun 8, 2009)

$199

Hmmmm.... how does that compare with the other handsets?


----------



## dogmatique (Jun 8, 2009)

$199 bucks... I'm sure that'll translate to... ooh, £199 quid!


----------



## pk (Jun 8, 2009)

dogmatique said:


> $199 bucks... I'm sure that'll translate to... ooh, £199 quid!



Cheaper than the equivalent Nokia though.

Original 3G down to $99.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

299 is 156 on o2 aint it?


----------



## pk (Jun 8, 2009)




----------



## dogmatique (Jun 8, 2009)

June 19th in teh UK.  I wonder how many there'll be...


----------



## dogmatique (Jun 8, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> 299 is 156 on o2 aint it?



No chance.  It'll be £299 quid.  Betya.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Is that a cert though?

e2a: as in the June 17th in the UK?


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

Its was a reasonable conversion last time.  I'd expect the 16Gb to be 149, which I'd probably get, but the best enhancement is easily v3 of the software which is free. 

Not quite enough to make be demand the new one immediately, though I probably will for the faster CPU.  

I expect the next version to be a lot faster and much better battery.  This feels like a mid life kicker to the 3g rather than a totally new hardware revision.


----------



## pk (Jun 8, 2009)

Tethering over Bluetooth and USB is the most useful function - if O2 allow it.


----------



## editor (Jun 8, 2009)

That was all a bit of a disappointment compared to iPhone launches for versions one and two, no?


----------



## dogmatique (Jun 8, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Is that a cert though?
> 
> e2a: as in the June 17th in the UK?



I'd have thought so, though how much stock will be in stores is the real question...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

UK site updated: http://www.apple.com/uk/


----------



## dogmatique (Jun 8, 2009)

Note you can pre-order the 3GS NOW in the US for delivery on the 19th at $199 bucks, in the UK, you can only buy 3G PayGo online, and no preordering of the 3GS.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2009)

editor said:


> That was all a bit of a disappointment compared to iPhone launches for versions one and two, no?



Was bound to be, although as pretty much all the improvements leaked, expectations in some quarters had already been managed downwards.

They've now dealt with the major omissions of earlier iphones: copy & paste, mms, sat nav, exchange, encryption, wiping, push, video camera. The lack of adobe flash, camera flash, higher MP camera remain, but this feels like the platform is finally reaching maturity.

Expect stuff that is more like the jesus phone launch hysteria when the tablet/netbook thing gets announced, maybe for Christmas but probably more likely this time next year.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jun 8, 2009)

Well, they've _finally_ got the iPhone up to speed IMHO.  If I wasn't firmly entrenched in the Android camp I'd give it serious consideration...


----------



## editor (Jun 8, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Well, they've _finally_ got the iPhone up to speed IMHO.  If I wasn't firmly entrenched in the Android camp I'd give it serious consideration...


I'd only be interested in they put a proper hardware keyboard on it.


----------



## dogmatique (Jun 8, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Is that a cert though?
> 
> e2a: as in the June 17th in the UK?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

dogmatique said:


>



Ah didn't take any notice of the country names, lol!


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jun 8, 2009)

editor said:


> I'd only be interested in they put a proper hardware keyboard on it.



Yeah, still a massive flaw IMO but at least everything else is there now.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

editor said:


> I'd only be interested in they put a proper hardware keyboard on it.



You can see why they don't and will never do one though and its nothing to do with user experience.

Any phone that has a hardware keyboard is entirely limited to the regions they make the keyboards for and the additional cost of having to change them for new regions.  They cant easily support ideographic languages like Japanese or Chinese.

30 new countries with a software update, a few new sheets of paper and a new sticker for the back of the box.


----------



## editor (Jun 8, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Yeah, still a massive flaw IMO but at least everything else is there now.


I can't bear the Android virtual keyboard, and the iPhone one isn't that much better. At least my time with a G1 has made that very clear to me. Hardware keyboard ftw!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

I can type almost as fast on the iPhone keyboard as I can on the Centro's one, and don't need to send 500 word emails really so the lack of hardware keyboard really not an issue for me...


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 8, 2009)

editor said:


> I can't bear the Android virtual keyboard, and the iPhone one isn't that much better. At least my time with a G1 has made that very clear to me. Hardware keyboard ftw!



I find I can type as fast on mine, but I seem to make a lot more errors, there is a lot to be said for something more tactile.


----------



## Oswaldtwistle (Jun 8, 2009)

pk said:


> Original 3G down to $99.



Even if that equates to 99 quid, that is one *hell* of a price drop!!

Currently 350 in Carphone Warehouse.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2009)

Oswaldtwistle said:


> Even if that equates to 99 quid, that is one *hell* of a price drop!!
> 
> Currently 350 in Carphone Warehouse.



I think you're confusing contract and payg prices.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2009)

That's the on contract price remember.  Down from $199 in the US.  Its only 96 quid on 18 month contract here, or free for 2 year contracts.

Engadget are saying its 399 for the 16Gb for mid contract which is 250 quid.  I can cope with that for the speed and battery boost.


----------



## Oswaldtwistle (Jun 8, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I think you're confusing contract and payg prices.



Ah, thought that was too good to be true


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jun 8, 2009)

editor said:


> I can't bear the Android virtual keyboard



There's an app called "better keyboard" on the market that claims to improve things and let you add various skins, might be worth a try?


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2009)

well the phone is what we thought it would be

I'm more excited by snow leopard. sounds like some real speed improvements in there, which is always welcome as computers get older 
and the price is so right, I hereby declare I will not rip off my next OS upgrade.


----------



## Structaural (Jun 9, 2009)

Well I missed all of that (my turn to pick up my daughter from playgroup and take her to the park), caught up now. Was quite underwhelming, but they didn't really have much to improve upon previous years new technology, though they could have got that netbook out the door.

Mostly looking forward to Snow Leopard, like Crispy, I think I'm eligible for an upgrade on my girlfriends Leopard that came with her laptop, I didn't buy Leopard for my desktop though. Though as Apple don't copy-protect their system discs this isn't usually a problem. I should see quite a speed increase on my 8-core as it's running a 8800GT as well. Currently the only thing that uses the 8-cores properly is After Effects, Cinema4d and Handbrake. I'll have to do some before and after benchmarking.

Quite taken with the 13" Macbook Pro as well, a nice small screen, but I ain't got no money... I think they should have dropped the price of the basic white macbook by a couple of hundred.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2009)

The rumour on the netbook front is that it will be some sort of tablet so they are spending ages coming up with a suitable user interface etc.

Snow Leopard will be good, the basic os is nice and fast but we will be relying on deveopers making changes to really get the most out of Snow Leopard. Thats one of the reasons it will be cheap, they want users to upgrade quickly to encourage developers to do snow-leopard-only stuff.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 9, 2009)

The 'macbook' product range is begging for an update now. The white macbook stands out in a sea of aluminium. Must be something on the way.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jun 9, 2009)

Crispy said:


> The 'macbook' product range is begging for an update now. The white macbook stands out in a sea of aluminium. Must be something on the way.



Either that, or they're being quietly phased out in favour of the pro models (and a possible entry into the netbook market for the lower end user).


----------



## Crispy (Jun 9, 2009)

skyscraper101 said:


> Either that, or they're being quietly phased out in favour of the pro models (and a possible entry into the netbook market for the lower end user).


Exactly my point.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 9, 2009)

Crispy said:


> well the phone is what we thought it would be
> 
> I'm more excited by snow leopard. sounds like some real speed improvements in there, which is always welcome as computers get older
> and the price is so right, I hereby declare I will not rip off my next OS upgrade.



Needs an intel mac though. So not much good for those of us with older macs.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2009)

skyscraper101 said:


> (and a possible entry into the netbook market for the lower end user).



Its rather unclear if they will do that: the tablet could be pricey, or it might have built in 3G and be subsidized by mobile phone companies but locking users into a contract.


----------



## lozenge (Jun 9, 2009)




----------



## Structaural (Jun 10, 2009)

teuchter said:


> Needs an intel mac though. So not much good for those of us with older macs.



Was Leopard G5 compatible?


----------



## Crispy (Jun 10, 2009)

Structaural said:


> Was Leopard G5 compatible?


yes


----------



## Structaural (Jun 10, 2009)

Oh well, Leopard's pretty good and most of the changes coming in Snow Leopard are Intel specific. We're still running Tiger on most G5s in this studio.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 10, 2009)

leopard's worth the upgrade hassle (not that there is much) purely for time machine, IMO.


----------



## Structaural (Jun 10, 2009)

Definitely (not that I've needed to use it yet, but good to know it's there), I use quicklook often too. They use Xservers here that have some sort of similar backup functionality.


----------



## cliche guevara (Jun 12, 2009)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> There's an app called "better keyboard" on the market that claims to improve things and let you add various skins, might be worth a try?



I downloaded this the other day. It's good, worth $2.99 imo.


----------



## editor (Jun 18, 2009)

There's a good overview of the new MacBook Pro line up here: http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/18/macbook-pro-early-2009-in-depth-impressions/

The laptops look nice to my eyes and the (short) review is enthusiastic , although the sealed in battery might cause problems for some users, with the reviewer only getting four hours light use on the 15" MacBook. I'm still not keen on those high reflective glossy screens on any laptop.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 18, 2009)

I'm willing to bet they didn't turn off the dedicated graphics on the 15" when running that test - integrated graphics is much kinder to the battery.
I'd rather believe some rigorous testing. I would argue that most people never actually replace their laptop battery, but that argument doesn't really work for some professionals who need lots of battery time in the field.

Still, you're right, they are very nice machines - the build quality is fantastic, and the huge multi-touch pad is really nice to use.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 18, 2009)

Structaural said:


> Definitely (not that I've needed to use it yet, but good to know it's there), I use quicklook often too. They use Xservers here that have some sort of similar backup functionality.


I've used it in anger once - upgraded Sparrow's macbook HD. Let Time Machine run. Turn off computer. Replace HD. Turn on computer. Insert OSX DVD. 'Restore from backup.' Wait. And we're back exactly where we left off without a sneeze. No puzzling out required 

Oh, and when the shop next door burned down, I grabbed the backup drive on the way out - very good to know that all our data was safe.


----------



## editor (Jun 18, 2009)

Crispy;9296248]I'm willing to bet they didn't turn off the dedicated graphics on the 15" when running that test - integrated graphics is much kinder to the battery.[/QUOTE]Would the average consumer know that said:


> Still, you're right, they are very nice machines - the build quality is fantastic, and the huge multi-touch pad is really nice to use.


I think they're really lovely looking machines, but I could never justify paying that big premium price when I could get something just as powerful and fully featured for a lot less (although not as pretty, granted).

I *heart* the backlit keyboard too, although if I was using a Mac I'd cover up that great big glowing advert on the lid in double quick time!


----------



## editor (Jun 20, 2009)

Steve Jobs had has a liver transplant.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sciencea...ple-boss-Steve-Jobs-has-liver-transplant.html


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 20, 2009)

Bloody hell, that ain't a good state of affairs...


----------



## editor (Jul 27, 2009)

I've been banging on for ages about how Apple could make killing with a iPhone/Kindle type multimedia device and according to growing rumours, there could be smoething like that coming up in time for Christmas:


> The FT also claims that Apple is "racing to offer a portable tablet-sized computer in time for the Christmas shopping season, in what the entertainment industry hopes will be a new revolution."
> 
> The 'iTablet' is set to be released alongside the aforementioned new content deals with the major music labels. It will arrive, according to the FT "probably without phone capability but with access to the web, and to Apple's online stores for software and entertainment."
> 
> ...



FT article: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a52c9ec0-7a29-11de-b86f-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

I can't see them failing with this one: nick the idea of the Kindle, wrap it up with Apple's legendary slick OS, iTunes integration and simple interface and build, pepper in a bit of netbook and it's got to be a winner.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 27, 2009)

So an iphone minus the phone, then.

Seems to be stretching the definition of "revolutionary" a little.

I'm sure the apple marketing genius will mean it's a big success nonetheless though.


----------



## jæd (Jul 27, 2009)

I'm going more with Ars's Q1 2010 release rumour : http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2...esurface-this-time-with-early-2010-launch.ars 

Given that colour e-ink is still a long way off, its a given its going to be more colourful. 

I like the way anything remotely Kindle shaped (eg, a thin square tablet with buttons) is a Kindle-killer...


----------



## editor (Jul 27, 2009)

I really can't see them getting it out this year, but the potential for a light, slim book reader/video/music player in tablet form is massive. Slam in a 3G slot/wi-fi chip for Google maps and web browsing (and Bluetooth calls) and it's going to make netbooks like well clumsy.

Ever tried to lie in bed and watch a film on your netbook? Not good.


----------



## editor (Aug 3, 2009)

The rumours of the Apple Tablet continue to build with a 'veteran analyst' claiming to have had a play with a prototype. I'm pretty excited by this development - I can see real potential for a laptop tablet given Apple's luxurious polish and legendary usability. 
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB124907975033998015.html

It's not all good news though, with The Times reporting that Apple tried "to silence a father and daughter with a gagging order after the child’s iPod music player exploded and the family sought a refund from the company."


> The Times has learnt that the company would offer the family a full refund only if they were willing to sign a settlement form. The proposed agreement left them open to legal action if they ever disclosed the terms of the settlement.
> 
> The case echoes previous circumstances in which Apple attempted to hush up incidents when its devices overheated...
> 
> ...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 3, 2009)

I like the idea of an Apple tablet but not sure I see the practical value in getting one really...it's unlikely to cost less than 500 quid and for that price you can get a pretty decent laptop...


----------



## jæd (Aug 3, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I like the idea of an Apple tablet but not sure I see the practical value in getting one really...it's unlikely to cost less than 500 quid and for that price you can get a pretty decent laptop...



Its more about the form factor. The "pretty decent laptop" would be clunky and big. An A5 sized iTablet would be easier to carry around and use on the move. The advantage over a Netbook would be mostly weight. (And it may be easier to use on the move)


----------



## editor (Aug 3, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I like the idea of an Apple tablet but not sure I see the practical value in getting one really...it's unlikely to cost less than 500 quid and for that price you can get a pretty decent laptop...


I can see it having real use as a media tablet. It's not exactly comfortable reading books or watching movies on a laptop in bed and if they could make it water tight, it would be a joy to lie in the bath and watch TV! Easier on a plane or train too.

The big problem would be the keyboard though.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 3, 2009)

jæd said:


> Its more about the form factor. The "pretty decent laptop" would be clunky and big. An A5 sized iTablet would be easier to carry around and use on the move. The advantage over a Netbook would be mostly weight. (And it may be easier to use on the move)



Yeah like I said I like the idea but it would be a bit of a luxury item for me. My current laptop cost 600 and has a 12.1 inch, great battery life (4 hours) and is fairly light and very portable...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 3, 2009)

editor said:


> I can see it having real use as a media tablet. It's not exactly comfortable reading books or watching movies on a laptop in bed and if they could make it water tight, it would be a joy to lie in the bath and watch TV! Easier on a plane or train too.
> 
> The big problem would be the keyboard though.



Er...I'd never lay in the bath and use an electrical product! But yeah a bigger iPhone/touch type thing but thin and light would be great, it'd be cool in the same way the Macbook Air is but not sure it'd be a first purchase type machine..


----------



## editor (Aug 3, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yeah like I said I like the idea but it would be a bit of a luxury item for me. My current laptop cost 600 and has a 12.1 inch, great battery life (4 hours) and is fairly light and very portable...


I reckon it'll provide a much, much nicer nicer viewing experience for movies but will be a lot pricier than an equally capable netbook - which is basically in line with Apple's product philosophy.


----------



## jæd (Aug 3, 2009)

editor said:


> The big problem would be the keyboard though.



If it runs Snow Leopard it would be easier to pair a bluetooth keyboard with it. (Assuming it had bluetooth...)


----------



## Crispy (Aug 3, 2009)

It won't run regular OSX if it's a 'media tablet' - too much compromise. Touch screen can not equate 1:1 functionality with a mouse.


----------



## Sunray (Aug 3, 2009)

editor said:


> I can see it having real use as a media tablet. It's not exactly comfortable reading books or watching movies on a laptop in bed and if they could make it water tight, it would be a joy to lie in the bath and watch TV! Easier on a plane or train too.
> 
> The big problem would be the keyboard though.



I watch stuff like that in bed on a TV using a networked media player (XBMC) and would never consider a laptop or anything else as a substitute.  I do appreciate others do use the laptop in bed.  

I can't see a tablet being much use without a proper keyboard.  I'm not fussed on my iPhone for reasons of simplicity.  Larger devices must have a keyboard to be useful.  

Unless its just a Mac Book Air with a twisty touch sensitive screen which would really set the world alight eh?


----------



## jæd (Aug 3, 2009)

Crispy said:


> It won't run regular OSX if it's a 'media tablet' - too much compromise. Touch screen can not equate 1:1 functionality with a mouse.



At the moment it really depends on which touch-screen they have. If like the iPhones then its probably going to some version of Mobile OS X. (Ie, finger operated)

Wacom currently produce a cool touch-screen monitor that works with their pens, etc and Leopard. (As Leopard already full support for pen based inout.)  Although this has all the problems with touch-screens on monitors, it does point the way to a pen-operated tablet.

Thing is, I can't see Apple wanting to produce something pen-based... Not cool enough.


----------



## jæd (Aug 3, 2009)

Sunray said:


> I can't see a tablet being much use without a proper keyboard.  I'm not fussed on my iPhone for reasons of simplicity.  Larger devices must have a keyboard to be useful.
> 
> Unless its just a Mac Book Air with a twisty touch sensitive screen which would really set the world alight eh?



A twisty touch screen is unlikely IMO... Perhaps something with some kind of haptic feed back...  It will certainly be interesting, whatever Apple comes out with. (A pundits will always claim its too expensive...)


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

Kerrrr-ching!


> Detractors will call it evidence of the company's pricey products, but Apple's Regent Street flagship is the most profitable retail store of its size in the capital, say analysts. Its £60 million yearly takings mean two grand is squeezed out of shoppers' pockets for every square foot; Harrods can only claim £751. Globally, Apple has posted revenues of £1.85 billion for the first six months of 2009, a modest growth of 2.5 percent, but one that goes against dire predictions that recession-scarred consumers would turn away from the company's premium machines in favour of cheaper models. ...
> 
> http://londonist.com/2009/08/apple_store_is_londons_most_profita.php


----------



## grit (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> it would be a joy to lie in the bath and watch TV!



 You'd get my vote in the darwin awards.


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

grit said:


> You'd get my vote in the darwin awards.


A weather sealed, battery powered laptop isn't going to kill you, silly.

Elsewhere - as the article asks - _Is there anything that Apple fans won't queue for?_


> With the launch of Apple's latest operating system Snow Leopard, queues were forming in the street before the opening of the Regent Street store in London.
> 
> You'd hardly think that a £25 upgrade was worthy of the excitement, but with a long weekend to tinker with a shiny new operating system on their Mac, it seems fans couldn't resist.
> 
> http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/26668/snow-leopard-apple-store-queues


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

No queues when I came past at just after 9:30am. Article is just stupid spin, of course there will be people outside if they are on there way to work and the shop doesn't open till 9am....


----------



## ovaltina (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> it would be a joy to lie in the bath and watch TV!



I can do that with my Thinkpad X31! Put the screen straight up, prop the computer behind the taps and watch iplayer 

Sadly the crap speaker makes it very hard to hear what anyone's saying so you can't splosh around much.


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

Kanda said:


> No queues when I came past at just after 9:30am. Article is just stupid spin, of course there will be people outside if they are on there way to work and the shop doesn't open till 9am....


Err, the article was posted at midday. 12:02 in fact

I've never queued for an OS update in my life.


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> Err, the article was posted at midday. 12:02 in fact.



so? Have you read it? It even quotes one person saying he thought he's pop in before work to get a copy.. and mentions the queue forming before the store opened.

What has 12.02 got to do with it?


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> I've never queued for an OS update in my life.



Nor would I unless I had to maybe wait 10 mins on the way to work rather than chew into my lunchbreak.

cos that seems to be what happened here... most people start work at 9am, just be 10 mins late and pick it up on the way in.

Spin it as you wish fella...


----------



## tarannau (Aug 28, 2009)

Oh come on Kanda, you can't expect the editor to resist a pop at Apple. No matter how nonsensical or forced the story is.

Jesus, it's hardly the Next Sale with people queuing up from 6.


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

Kanda said:


> so? Have you read it? It even quotes one person saying he thought he's pop in before work to get a copy.. and mentions the queue forming before the store opened.


There's a queue there now!

lol. http://twitter.com/Xantiriad


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Oh come on Kanda, you can't expect the editor to resist a pop at Apple. No matter how nonsensical or forced the story is.


Oh dear. Here come The Defenders Of The Faith! Not sure how I'm having a go at Apple here, mind, but perhaps you should address that to the site I linked to. 

I thought it was an amusing story because queuing up for an OS upgrade is a bit silly.  I didn't realise it would cause such  offence to you sensitive iBoys. 'Umble apologies.


----------



## Pie 1 (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> Oh dear. Here come The Defenders Of The Faith!
> I didn't realise it was cause such  offence to you sensitive iBoys. Apologies.



Oh, do one editor. Really


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

Pie 1 said:


> Oh, do one editor. Really


And another sensitive iLamb comes bleating in. I linked to a story. That's all. Get over yourself.


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> There's a queue there now!
> 
> lol. http://twitter.com/Xantiriad



I'm now posting from the store and there are no queues. I thought I'd pop round the corner on my lunch break.... 

Pic upload in a bit...


----------



## jæd (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> And another sensitive iLamb comes bleating in. I linked to a story. That's all. Get over yourself.



One that appears to quite inaccurate...


----------



## grit (Aug 28, 2009)

jæd said:


> One that appears to quite inaccurate...



What does that have to do with anything


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

Kanda said:


> I'm now posting from the store and there are no queues. I thought I'd pop round the corner on my lunch break....
> 
> Pic upload in a bit...


Whatever for? To protect the good name of all Apple users everywhere and to uninvent the queue that was twittered about an hour ago?

This is weird. I mean, really weird. Why do you care enough to go out and take pictures?


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> Whatever for? To protect the good name of all Apple users everywhere and to uninvent the queue that was twittered about an hour ago?
> 
> This is weird. I mean, really weird. Why do you care enough to go out and take pictures?



3 of my colleagues have bought it today, at different times over the last 3 hours, none have had to queue... Fact.

I care cos you're getting really boring with all this Apple bashing. I don't give a toss about Apple really.  

It's fun proving you wrong when I am about 300yds from the store and I know what you're posting is wrong 

what did that article being posted at 12:02 have to do with anything anyway??


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

jæd said:


> One that appears to quite inaccurate...



One that actually states that people popped there on the way to work.


----------



## grit (Aug 28, 2009)

Kanda said:


> I care cos you're _*getting *_really boring with all this Apple bashing. I don't give a toss about Apple really.



Oh we arrived at that destination a long time ago.


----------



## Pie 1 (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> And another sensitive iLamb comes bleating in



Cock off you fucking troll.


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> uninvent the queue that was twittered about an hour ago?





editor said:


> *There's a queue there now!*
> 
> lol. http://twitter.com/Xantiriad



You posted at 13:55, I posted at 14:05 from the store. I didn't bother checking the time of the tweet, you said *now*


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

grit said:


> Oh we arrived at that destination a long time ago.


Fuck off with the 'we'. Thanks.


Kanda said:


> I care cos you're getting really boring with all this Apple bashing.


Apple bashing eh? Let's look at my last Apple-related posts:

Earlier I described Spotify and Facebook's approval as being 'good news' and commented that "the Facebook app looks particularly good and the approval of Spotify perhaps signifies a healthy change in direction for Apple." So that's pretty much positive. I did however, link to another  breaking story about Apple removing functionality from another app. I could see no reason why that shouldn't be mentioned too.

In this very thread a few hours ago I posted up about Apple's Regent Street flagship being the most profitable retail store of its size in the capital. So not much bashing in that post either. 

I also posted to a link to a comparison between Windows 7 and Snow Leopard and - you've guessed it - there's wasn't  even the slightest hint of Apple bashing to be found there either.

Two days ago I spoke of Apple doing "a grand job of providing a smooth user experience" and I've actually lost count of the times I've had to remind some people here that I've repeatedly described the iPhone as the _"best smartphone currently available in the UK"_ with a build quality that is "unmatched" by any other manufacturer. I don't think it's possible to give a more positive review of a phone once you've described it as the best.

So stop being so ridiculously defensive and uptight over a vast multi-billion corporate who make some fantastic gadgets but whose methods and business practices are not beyond criticism, ridicule or gentle joshing. And the same applies to its users too.

Jeez.

*ignores Pie1's latest attention seeking, abusive squawk.


----------



## grit (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> I've actually lost count of the times I've had to remind some people here that I've repeatedly described the iPhone as the _"best smartphone currently available in the UK"_



Heh, and this still doesnt make you question the tone of your posts if you continually mis communicate your views?


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

grit said:


> Heh, and this still doesnt make you question the tone of your posts if you continually mis communicate your views?


I don't think the problem is with me, to be honest, and I'm not going to stop criticising the business practices and methods of Apple - or any other massive tech corporate for that matter - for fear of upsetting any of their _fans' _feelings either.

The way some people act with such outraged indignation whenever even the gentlest of ribbings is admonished you'd think that I'd committed heresy.

Your persistent cheap stirring doesn't help, mind.


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

The article about the queue and saying that people are queuing NOW were utter crap. 

If anyone posts crap they'll get pulled up on it. Defending posting crap by calling people fanboys is pretty stupid too.


----------



## jæd (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> The way some people act with such outraged indignation whenever even the gentlest of ribbings is admonished you'd think that I'd committed heresy.



I've thought that once or twice, too...


----------



## Crispy (Aug 28, 2009)

jæd said:


> I've thought that once or twice, too...


reminds me of something


----------



## grit (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> I don't think the problem is with me, to be honest, and I'm not going to stop criticising the business practices and methods of Apple - or any other massive tech corporate for that matter - for fear of upsetting any of their _fans' _feelings either.



Wouldnt expect you to (stop criticizing).




editor said:


> The way some people act with such outraged indignation whenever even the gentlest of ribbings is admonished you'd think that I'd committed heresy.



From what I've seen on this thread your the one of the most that gets  worked up/emotional, sure its most of the entertainment in these threads since the arguments just go around in circles



editor said:


> Your persistent cheap stirring doesn't help, mind.



Now, now I dont abuse/insult anyone, i back up my views and admit when I'm wrong. Thats not stiring it up, thats disagreeing with you.

Honestly I think it would be fun to actually have a pint with you in real life, becuase I think these threads are fun and enjoy the verbal jousting. I dont feel any bad blood

Edited to add: and fuck it i'll get the round in


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Aug 28, 2009)

the editor is fighting with fictitious posters again is he 

let's see these posts of support for apples business practices then please editor full quotes now we'd hate to see something misrepresented...

and if you follow the rule of common denominators then it'd be you not others who is the common factor in your misinterpreted posts...

to put it bluntly as you would to me it's your fault if your posts are misconstrued if this isn't the case I'll expect no further comments about how my posts are taken from your quarter. 

you know sauce for the goose and all that...


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

GarfieldLeChat;9626883] let's see these posts of support for apples business practices then please editor full quotes now we'd hate to see something misrepresented...[/QUOTE]That may we well be in Mandarin for all the sense it makes. [QUOTE=Kanda said:


> Defending posting crap by calling people fanboys is pretty stupid too.


I haven't called anyone a  fanboy, but I'd say you've got to be something of an extremely keen fan to stand at the back of a large queue just to be first to get an  OS update. 

All, IMO, of course. Perhaps that's normal behaviour for some people here.


----------



## grit (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> That may we well be in Mandarin for all the sense it



I thought it was pretty clear. He is requesting that you post evidence of the posts you have made supporting apple's business practices. He is also requesting that the whole post be quoted so the context is present.


----------



## Pie 1 (Aug 28, 2009)

grit said:


> Now, now I dont abuse/insult anyone, i back up my views and admit when I'm wrong. Thats not stiring it up, thats disagreeing with you.



S'ok - editor has a particuarly hard time trying to get to grips with this concept.


----------



## jæd (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> I haven't called anyone a  fanboy, but I'd say you've got to be something of an extremely keen fan to stand at the back of a large queue just to be first to get an  OS update.



It depends on what you find exciting. Different people are different. And there wasn't a queue, anyway...



grit said:


> I thought it was pretty clear. He is requesting that you post evidence of the posts you have made supporting apple's business practices. He is also requesting that the whole post be quoted so the context is present.



For some reason it was one of Garf's more intelligible comments.


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> but I'd say you've got to be something of an extremely keen fan to stand at the back of a large queue just to be first to get an  OS update.



But the article even stated they some just popped in on the way to work... I explained this way back there ^^ 

I said the article was just spin, which it was. I went to the Apple store at lunch and posted from there, I didn't buy the OS btw


----------



## tarannau (Aug 28, 2009)

Damn. And I was hoping to borrow your copy too.


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

grit said:


> He is requesting that you post evidence of the posts you have made supporting apple's business practices.


How can I produce evidence of something I've never claimed to have said in the first place?  


jæd said:


> And there wasn't a queue, anyway...


But there *was* a queue earlier. Quite a large one, actually. Shall I show you a picture of it?

*ignores Pie1's predictable stirring


----------



## Pie 1 (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> *ignores Pie1's predictable stirring



Yet has to mention it anyway.

Fail


----------



## grit (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> How can I produce evidence of something I've never claimed to have said in the first place?



Dont ask me, all I did was parse the question you were having difficulty with.

And i see you didnt take me up on my offer of a pint


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> That may we well be in Mandarin for all the sense it makes.



ooo orignial a dylexic dig well done... 

feel better about yourself for being able to take the piss out of the disabled...

good for you you sure showed me...


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> But there *was* a queue earlier. Quite a large one, actually. Shall I show you a picture of it?



Shall I requote myself:



Kanda said:


> Nor would I unless I had to maybe wait 10 mins on the way to work rather than chew into my lunchbreak.
> 
> cos that seems to be what happened here... most people start work at 9am, just be 10 mins late and pick it up on the way in.



then quote the article:



> "I thought I'd grab a copy before heading into work", one person in the queue told us



The store is by Oxford Circus, one of the busiest commuter stations, thousands pass the Apple store, there's probably about 20 in that queue,  what is wrong with getting to work 10 mins late rather than trek out on your lunchbreak?

As said, I came past at 9:30, there was no queue in or out of the store.


----------



## jæd (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> But there *was* a queue earlier. Quite a large one, actually. Shall I show you a picture of it?



See post #849


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

No queues, you say?



			
				http://twitter.com/unicorn27 said:
			
		

> Severe queue for Snow Leopard at Meadowhall Apple Store in Sheffield. They're currently unable to accept payment by card! Have cash ready! (2 hours ago)






			
				http://twitter.com/Xantiriad said:
			
		

> Big *queue* at the *Apple* *Store* (London). I wonder why? (3 hours ago)






			
				http://twitter.com/bendodson said:
			
		

> *Queue* outside *Apple* *store* for Snow Leopard http://twitpic.com/fjrj0. (via @paulreevo) - It's bigger than the iPhone 3GS *queue*! (6 hours ago)





> alienspaces *Queue*'s round the block now outside *Apple* *Store* Regent Street for Snow Leopard release. (7 hrs)


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Damn. And I was hoping to borrow your copy too.



I will be buying a family pack, feel free.


----------



## El Jefe (Aug 28, 2009)

even by urban's exalted standards, this is a fucking brilliant row


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> Originally Posted by http://twitter.com/Xantiriad
> Big queue at the Apple Store (London). I wonder why? (3 hours ago)



This one was incorrect though. One of our devs bought it an hour before I went to the store.. and there was no queue. I also wonder how many IT types decided to pick some up on the way to work to upgrade systems.... none of that is bought into consideration in having a pop at some queues 

But now you're expanding it to all stores, even ones the article didn't mention... I was just picking on the article...


----------



## jæd (Aug 28, 2009)

> Severe queue for Snow Leopard at Meadowhall Apple Store in Sheffield. They're currently unable to accept payment by card! Have cash ready! (2 hours ago)



Really...? A queue because of their card machines being down...?



> alienspaces Queue's round the block now outside Apple Store Regent Street for Snow Leopard release. (7 hrs)



15 - 7 = 8. Which would be commuting time...?


----------



## jæd (Aug 28, 2009)

And why shouldn't they be queuing if they want to. Its supposed to be great value for £25...


----------



## Crispy (Aug 28, 2009)

El Jefe said:


> even by urban's exalted standards, this is a fucking brilliant row


I try not to join in when editor et. al. are in an apple frothathon, but this is making my friday afternoon


----------



## El Jefe (Aug 28, 2009)

Crispy said:


> I try not to join in when editor et. al. are in an apple frothathon, but this is making my friday afternoon



i need to pay this thread more attention, it fucking delivers


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 28, 2009)

Someone on my Twitter list said there was no queue at Regents Street, 9.15am.


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Aug 28, 2009)

are you going to apologise for your dyslexic comment as it's an instant ban for disabled bashing editor as dictated by mrs m.


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

Crispy said:


> I try not to join in when editor et. al. are in an apple frothathon, but this is making my friday afternoon



It's stunning. Having walked past the store this morning, 3 people here been down to the store at 3 seperate times, me even walking to the store when he said: They are queuing NOW... 

Yet it still goes on


----------



## grit (Aug 28, 2009)

El Jefe said:


> i need to pay this thread more attention, it fucking delivers



Oh and we are only getting warmed up  Wait until we have Palm Pre sales figures to argue about!


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Aug 28, 2009)

so there's been a change of policy has there on urban about disabled bashing?


----------



## jæd (Aug 28, 2009)

Just got my copy. There _was_ a queue to speak to the Receptionist.


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

Kanda said:


> This one was incorrect though. One of our devs bought it an hour before I went to the store.. and there was no queue. I also wonder how many IT types decided to pick some up on the way to work to upgrade systems.... none of that is bought into consideration in having a pop at some queues


IT admins installing just-released, and as yet untested-in-the-wild upgrades on a Friday afternoon? Hell, that's a smart way to go!

Now here's a story to warm the cockles of *all* our hearts. The developer of this Mac/Palm/Windows/Linux Twitter client can't see what all the fuss about their name is about: http://tinyurl.com/2ske8t

The logo's a real winner too.


----------



## grit (Aug 28, 2009)

jæd said:


> Just got my copy. There _was_ a queue to speak to the Receptionist.



She must have been cute?


----------



## tarannau (Aug 28, 2009)

Oh come on Garf. The problem isn't that you're dyslexic, more that you're prone to quickly posting massive nonsensical rants with no quality control.

To be honest, that was one of your much clearer posts to me. There are times I simply can't be bothered to unpick the froth as you go into 5th gear.


----------



## grit (Aug 28, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Oh come on Garf. The problem isn't that you're dyslexic, more that you're prone to quickly posting massive nonsensical rants with no quality control.
> 
> To be honest, that was one of your much clearer posts to me. There are times I simply can't be bothered to unpick the froth as you go into 5th gear.



I dont know Garf enough to comment on his previous posts, but it did seem like a pretty cheap shot in fairness.


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> IT admins installing just-released, and as yet untested-in-the-wild upgrades on a Friday afternoon? Hell, that's a smart way to go!



What do you think they are doing? 

I'd say they buy a copy, install it on a test machine, test their apps. Then if everything works, they roll it out. They're hardly going to walk out with 50 copies on the Friday morning are they, just the one to piss about with on a Friday afternoon cos all their punters have been hassling them to get it in as soon as possible... 

That's how people do it in the industry I work in, IT.


----------



## jæd (Aug 28, 2009)

grit said:


> She must have been cute?



No, just a busy Friday afternoon before a long weekend with a slow Receptionist.


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

Kanda said:


> I'd say they buy a copy, install it on a test machine, test their apps. Then if everything works, they roll it out. They're hardly going to walk out with 50 copies on the Friday morning are they, just the one to piss about with on a Friday afternoon cos all their punters have been hassling them to get it in as soon as possible...
> 
> That's how people do it in the industry I work in, IT.


Really? The people I've known in IT are always very cautious about 'point 0' OS releases, and never roll them out until some time after the initial release, when user feedback has helped iron out any bugs and missing drivers have been released. 

Why I’ll Wait on Snow Leopard, and Why Maybe You Should Too
http://theappleblog.com/2009/08/26/why-ill-wait-on-snow-leopard-and-why-maybe-you-should-too/


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Aug 28, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Oh come on Garf. The problem isn't that you're dyslexic, more that you're prone to quickly posting massive nonsensical rants with no quality control.
> 
> To be honest, that was one of your much clearer posts to me. There are times I simply can't be bothered to unpick the froth as you go into 5th gear.



maybe the case T but in this instance the editor was in error and instead of having the good grace to admit it inspite of the weight of evidence against his hyperbolic point he decided he'd go for a low blow.

maybe he needs a 24 hours ban to clam down and reflect.

unless he's above his own rules...

which i think we all know the answer too...

it's ok I'm of the same give no quarter stock as he is but even i have to occasionally admit I'm wrong, it's good for the soul...

that and you'd prolly not even noticed but other than a few threads i really don't post here anymore precisely because of the issues you state and it get tediousness having to go over the same old arguments. 

If i can change MO can the editor?

time will tell i guess...


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Aug 28, 2009)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> so there's been a change of policy has there on urban about disabled bashing?



editor?


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> Really? The people I've known in IT are always very cautious about 'point 0' OS releases, and never roll them out until some time after the initial release, when user feedback has helped iron out any bugs and missing drivers have been released.
> 
> Why I’ll Wait on Snow Leopard, and Why Maybe You Should Too
> http://theappleblog.com/2009/08/26/why-ill-wait-on-snow-leopard-and-why-maybe-you-should-too/



Still doesn't stop them wanting to piss about with it does it?? 

God this is boring. You said there were queues, there wasn't really, just people waiting for the store to open on the way to work. You then say they are queing now, so I go check, and they aren't. That's all.


----------



## grit (Aug 28, 2009)

Kanda said:


> . You said there were queues, there wasn't really, just people waiting for the store to open on the way to work. You then say they are queing now, so I go check, and they aren't. That's all.



Thus completes the circle of life on Urbans tech forums


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> editor?


garf? 


Kanda said:


> Still doesn't stop them wanting to piss about with it does it?


This is really bizarre stuff. How do you know there was even a single IT admin in those queues anyway? Did you ask?







"Hi! We're all admins!"


----------



## jæd (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> Why I’ll Wait on Snow Leopard, and Why Maybe You Should Too
> http://theappleblog.com/2009/08/26/why-ill-wait-on-snow-leopard-and-why-maybe-you-should-too/



I love the slightly alarmist blog post. Conveniently forgets about the "Archive and Install" (now the default) mode as well as forgetting about Time Machine. And if your Production workflow _depends_ on Haxies you're screwed, anyway. 

Obviously for Production machines its a good idea to back off for a bit, though someone has to test it.


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> garf?
> This is really bizarre stuff, How do you know there was even a single IT admin in those queues? Did you ask?
> 
> 
> ...



see, now you're twisting what I say. How ridiculous.

I said previously it's near one of the busiest tube stations and thousands of commuters could pop by and pick up a copy on the way to work, now you're just being silly and ignoring that just because I mentioned some IT people might be in the queue too... 

Please read the thread, please read mine and Fridgemagnets posts.


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

Hi garf. The reason I couldn't understand your post was that it made no sense in the context of this thread. 

Following the pattern of your usual, random, scattergun personal attacks, you steamed in with points that made no sense and which had no logic or bearing on the debate in this thread.

Ergo, the post may as well been in a different language. HTH. HAND.


----------



## jæd (Aug 28, 2009)

I remember when Mac OS 1.00 came out:


----------



## grit (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> Hi garf. The reason I couldn't understand your post was that it made no sense in the context of this thread.
> 
> Following the pattern of your usual, random, scattergun personal attacks, you steamed in with points that made no sense and which had no logic or bearing on the debate in this thread.
> 
> Ergo, the post may as well been in a different language. HTH. HAND.



However several other posters on the thread had no trouble parsing it, so looks like editor has his own difficulties with the written word.


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> Hi garf. The reason I couldn't understand your post was that it made no sense in the context of this thread.
> 
> Following the pattern of your usual, random, scattergun personal attacks, you steamed in with points that made no sense and which had no logic or bearing on the debate in this thread.
> 
> Ergo, the post may as well been in a different language. HTH. HAND.



nopesorry won't do you've had nearly an hour to come up with an apology and this mealy mouth bullshit won't do you posted something because you were shown to be wrong and decide to lash out and did so in a fashion which attacked another posters disability.

now apologies or serve you own rules 24 hour ban ... which ever is less of a stepping on your psychic dick... 

you justification doesn't even make sense as the post was entirely on topic and also as it happens right you can't prove a single persons supposed fanboism even though that was the entire thrust of your comments about iposters and their cheerleading so really stop wriggling and admit you were wrong anything else is evident rank hypocrisy


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

grit said:


> However several other posters on the thread had no trouble parsing it, so looks like editor has his own difficulties with the written word.


Perhaps those other posters weren't aware of the fact that his argument was  based around things _I hadn't actually said and therefore made no sense_, oh grand stirrer in the spoonage department?


----------



## grit (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> Perhaps those other posters weren't aware of the fact that his argument was  based around things _I hadn't actually said and therefore made no sense_, oh grand stirrer in the spoonage department?



I'm not debating the merit of the content, I'm just stating it was perfectly understandable.


----------



## jæd (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> Perhaps those other posters weren't aware of the fact that his argument was  based around things _I hadn't actually said and therefore made no sense_, oh grand stirrer in the spoonage department?



Whether Garf was factually correct or not didn't detract from people understanding it.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> IT admins installing just-released, and as yet untested-in-the-wild upgrades on a Friday afternoon? Hell, that's a smart way to go!



It's not Windows...


----------



## Crispy (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> This is really bizarre stuff. How do you know there was even a single IT admin in those queues anyway? Did you ask?





editor said:


> ...his argument was  based around things _I hadn't actually said and therefore made no sense_



Thread eats itself.


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

jæd;9627464]Whether Garf was factually correct or not didn't detract from people understanding it.[/QUOTE]But not to[B] me[/B] because the points he raised against me made no sense.[QUOTE=GarfieldLeChat said:


> nopesorry won't do you've had nearly an hour to come up with an apology and this mealy mouth bullshit won't do you posted something because you were shown to be wrong and decide to lash out and did so in a fashion which attacked another posters disability.


I've no idea how you're interpreting whatever MrsM is supposed to have said to you, but the rules are linked on the top of every page and I can't see any  special provision for you written there.

Mind you, your endless personal attacks and disruptive outbursts certainly seem at odds with our posting rules, so perhaps I'd think twice  before continuing to disrupt this thread with your cod outrage and abusive language.


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2009)

*steps over the mess

Here's an interesting '5 facts about the Spotify iPhone app' article that some may find interesting: 
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/26672/five-facts-spotify-iphone-app

3,333 songs can be stored in playlists to listen to offline - which is amazing - but its inability to run in the background would probably kill it for me.


----------



## jæd (Aug 28, 2009)

Software known not to work : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3258


----------



## stupid dogbot (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> Here's an interesting '5 facts about the Spotify iPhone app' article that some may find interesting:
> http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/26672/five-facts-spotify-iphone-app
> 
> 3,333 songs can be stored in playlists to listen to offline - which is amazing - but its inability to run in the background would probably kill it for me.



That's nearly as many as the iPod on the 16GB will hold, eh.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 28, 2009)

jæd said:


> Software known not to work : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3258



Actually, that's a big pain - I use a T-Mobile branded launch2net for my 3G dongle, and not only has launch2net not updated their software yet, I'll then have to wait for T-Mobile to update their branded version, which will be bloody forever.

launch2net is a flaky bastard so I'm not altogether surprised it fails, but either way it's a pain as I'm not sure there are any Intel drivers for the thing.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 28, 2009)

I've just walked past the Apple Store on Regent St and there is a queue of about 50 people there, including three tents which are being removed by police.

There was one person who looked to have collapsed from exhaustion; I don't know how long they'd been standing there.


----------



## Kanda (Aug 28, 2009)

teuchter said:


> I've just walked past the Apple Store on Regent St and there is a queue of about 50 people there, including three tents which are being removed by police.
> 
> There was one person who looked to have collapsed from exhaustion; I don't know how long they'd been standing there.



I was walking past at 6:15, that queue must have formed quickly


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Aug 28, 2009)

editor said:


> But not to* me* because the points he raised against me made no sense.I've no idea how you're interpreting whatever MrsM is supposed to have said to you, but the rules are linked on the top of every page and I can't see any  special provision for you written there.
> 
> Mind you, your endless personal attacks and disruptive outbursts certainly seem at odds with our posting rules, so perhaps I'd think twice  before continuing to disrupt this thread with your cod outrage and abusive language.



so let me get this right you make a gutless attack on my dyslexia and then I'm going to get banned for you wriggling attempts to justify your attack as something it was not and my asking for an apology from your for your uncalled for attack is me issuing a personal attack on you...

is that honestly what you are saying here?

so I'll have quotes where I've been abusive in this regard please. 

you know to justify your comments.  

though I guarentee you'll find none.

Mrs M has specifically said that people who post up abusive terms for disabled people or take the piss and acted on it previously the spacka debate being a classic example, where people have been banned... 

still you are refusing your responsibility for your own words why should any one grant you credibility at all with anything more you say.

More over its a bit dishonest to when again it's pointed out to you that you were wrong to attempt to ban that person for disagreeing with you, no one else had a problem with what was written, only you.  Again it's you that's the common denominator here.

If you were any kind of reasonable person at this point you'd apologise.  

It's entirely up to you how you take that however your actions will determine the truth of the matter.

If you want to ban me for pointing out your unacceptable abuse is unacceptable go ahead frankly I'd rather not be a member of a site where the owner attacks you because of your disability purely on the grounds that they were shown up to be wrong and won't concede it. 

Far from me wreaking the thread it's actually you with your off topic attacks on me as a poster and apparently your immunity from the rules you set and sanctioned which are pushing this off topic the quickest resolution would be to apologies rather than bluster on about remove people from site or my complaining about your abuse being some kind of attack on you. 

So ban away if it makes you feel better about your actions, but it'll leave a permanent stain on your character as everyone will see that you've done it because you overstepped the mark and wouldn't own up to it.

I'm now considering whether i want my account deleted anyway as obviously I'm not going to remain on a site where the owner is free to abuse people based on their disability.


----------



## El Jefe (Aug 28, 2009)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> I'm now considering whether i want my account deleted anyway .



fingers crossed


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Aug 28, 2009)

El Jefe said:


> fingers crossed



sorry how is this at all related jefe to the thread?  or the topic?

so it's just one of the editors pals come to stick the boot in. nice to have another example of what type or a person you are.


----------



## El Jefe (Aug 28, 2009)

nowt to do with the editor, garf. I just like the idea of you fucking off and taking your endless bombast and abuse with you.

You're such a tease.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 28, 2009)

teuchter said:


> I've just walked past the Apple Store on Regent St and there is a queue of about 50 people there, including three tents which are being removed by police.
> 
> There was one person who looked to have collapsed from exhaustion; I don't know how long they'd been standing there.



I heard the police were moving in with horses and batons.


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Aug 28, 2009)

El Jefe said:


> nowt to do with the editor, garf. I just like the idea of you fucking off and taking your endless bombast and abuse with you.
> 
> You're such a tease.



as i said how is this related to the thread or the topic?


----------



## El Jefe (Aug 28, 2009)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> as i said how is this related to the thread or the topic?



it's related to your post, that'll do for me.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 28, 2009)

Kanda said:


> I was walking past at 6:15, that queue must have formed quickly



I think your story is a fabrication. An outrageous lie.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 28, 2009)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> so let me get this right you make a gutless attack on my dyslexia and then I'm going to get banned for you wriggling attempts to justify your attack as something it was not and my asking for an apology from your for your uncalled for attack is me issuing a personal attack on you...
> 
> is that honestly what you are saying here?
> 
> ...



I would suggest you take your case to the European Court for Human Rights or, alternatively, to Judge Judy.


----------



## editor (Aug 29, 2009)

Interesting feature for anyone mulling over the upgrade:

*20 best new features in OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard*
So you think Apple's new OS has little to offer? Think again
http://www.techradar.com/news/softw...new-features-in-os-x-10-6-snow-leopard-630191


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Aug 29, 2009)

so am i getting banned for asking you to apologise for your disabled bashing comments?

or getting an apology?


----------



## editor (Sep 3, 2009)

Whoosh! 23 MacBook Pros, 14 iPhones and 9 iPod touches pocketed in just 31 seconds in an impressively swift raid on the New Jersey Apple Store.

Cheesy, hyperbolic US video news report: http://www.tuaw.com/2009/09/02/more-from-the-police-blotter-sagemore-apple-store-hit-by-burgla/


----------



## Crispy (Sep 9, 2009)

New ipods coming up. Live coverage of press event here: http://live.gizmodo.com/

Rumours say that the whole line is getting cameras.

Very likely a new versino of itunes too, as it's one of the very few bundled apps in OSX 10.6 that isn't 32-bit native yet.


----------



## Structaural (Sep 9, 2009)

editor said:


> Whoosh! 23 MacBook Pros, 14 iPhones and 9 iPod touches pocketed in just 31 seconds in an impressively swift raid on the New Jersey Apple Store.
> 
> Cheesy, hyperbolic US video news report: http://www.tuaw.com/2009/09/02/more-from-the-police-blotter-sagemore-apple-store-hit-by-burgla/



It was carried out by all those Laptop Hunter stooges regretting their purchases.


----------



## Structaural (Sep 9, 2009)

This is quite a good feed too:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/09/09/live_from_apples_its_only_rock_and_roll_event.html


----------



## Crispy (Sep 9, 2009)

App recommendations based on previously installed apps, nice touch


----------



## Structaural (Sep 9, 2009)

setup your iPhone screens in iTunes - like it.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 9, 2009)

more control over syncing - very much like it. annoying that the current photos option is up to the 20 most recent events, or everything with no midpoint. I'd like to sync "all events in the last 24 months" or something like that.


----------



## Structaural (Sep 9, 2009)

Does this mean that I can copy music from my work computer I wonder as it's one of my authorized comps? or only home networks.

You could create a smartfolder in iPhoto probably to do that and then sync to it Crispy.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 9, 2009)

The current apps interface in iTunes is a joke so good that they're doing something about that. It's easier to download, update and organise them on the phone than it is on the desktop, which can't be right.


----------



## untethered (Sep 9, 2009)

I'm really looking forward to getting a mediocre camera on the iPod Touch. Think of the possibilities.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Sep 9, 2009)

I'm a bit worried about the "Genius" bit of it, though.

Things Genius on iTunes isn't: very clever.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 9, 2009)

Structaural said:


> Does this mean that I can copy music from my work computer I wonder as it's one of my authorized comps? or only home networks.
> 
> You could create a smartfolder in iPhoto probably to do that and then sync to it Crispy.



Yep, this works, but then I just get one big album of 1000's of pics on the ipod to scrub through. Not very user-friendly!


----------



## Structaural (Sep 9, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Yep, this works, but then I just get one big album of 1000's of pics on the ipod to scrub through. Not very user-friendly!



No.  

A quicker scroll mechanism on the iPhone would be good for very large lists- scrolling through photos and my disorganised Bookmarks folder in Safari takes forever.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 9, 2009)

Organise your bookmarks!


----------



## Structaural (Sep 9, 2009)

I alphabetized them with BookDog and now they're even more confusing. My least favourite job...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 9, 2009)

So all pretty standard refreshes then...


----------



## Structaural (Sep 9, 2009)

Yeah, though I'm quietly impressed with the nano, might have to buy one, if I ever start running. Liking the FM radio.


----------



## editor (Sep 9, 2009)

The iPod nano is getting a stills/video camera and a speaker. It's all pretty ho hum thus far.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/09/apple-slaps-video-camera-into-new-ipod-nano/


----------



## Structaural (Sep 9, 2009)

Pretty underwhelming overall indeed. Nano's got FM, Pedometer and Video/Stills so not bad for a (almost) bottom of the range iPod.


----------



## editor (Sep 9, 2009)

Structaural said:


> Pretty underwhelming overall indeed. Nano's got FM, Pedometer and Video/Stills so not bad for a (almost) bottom of the range iPod.


I can't believe it took so long for Apple to get around to including an FM radio. They're pretty much a basic 'must have' for any media player I'd be interested in.

I wonder if the iTunes update intentionally breaks Palm Pre syncing again - maybe that's why Palm delayed the roll out of version 1.2 of their webOS.


----------



## untethered (Sep 9, 2009)

editor said:


> The iPod nano is getting a stills/video camera and a speaker. It's all pretty ho hum thus far.



Not much fun for Cisco who have just bought Flip Video.


----------



## editor (Sep 9, 2009)

untethered said:


> Not much fun for Cisco who have just bought Flip Video.


The Nano's video is pretty lo-fi though at just 640 by 480 pixels (up to 30 frames/sec) and Apple aren't exactly renown for the outstanding quality of their onboard cameras.

Saying that, most kids are clearly going to go for a Nano with video/stills than a dedicated extra gadget to lug about if they're only after recording movies for YouTube.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2009)

The syncing of multiple computers in itunes 9 is handy.


----------



## untethered (Sep 9, 2009)

editor said:


> The Nano's video pretty lo-fit though at  640 by 480 pixels, up to 30 frames and Apple aren't exactly renown for the outstanding quality of their onboard cameras.



True. This is definitely one from the "good enough" design school.

As far as I can tell the new Nano only does video, not stills.

The Nano is already a good player and with the new camera and radio there's even less of an excuse not to buy one if that's the kind of thing you like. On the other hand, for £35 more (Apple's prices) you can get an 8GB iPod Touch. No video or radio but lots of apps and games and a much better screen for watching films.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Sep 9, 2009)

untethered said:


> On the other hand, for £35 more (Apple's prices) you can get an 8GB iPod Touch. No video or radio but lots of apps and games and a much better screen for watching films.



If all your after is a small, lightweight music player then I can still see the appeal. Many people have their phone to do the other jobs.


----------



## editor (Sep 9, 2009)

Global_Stoner said:


> If all your after is a small, lightweight music player then I can still see the appeal. Many people have their phone to do the other jobs.


If I was after a small lightweight music player I'd go for the Sansa Sandisk which offers astonishing value for money, although the iPod Touch is the one to beat if money's no option and you're after an incredibly stylish bit of kit.

Oh, and it seems that iTunes 9 breaks Pre/iTunes syncing again.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Sep 9, 2009)

So would I, it was more a comment about why people may buy a nano over a Touch. My other concern with about a touch would be that a larger screen makes it easier to break, but then I'm just clumsy. 

I think Palm went about the whole itunes thing in a cack handed manner, what were they expecting Apple to do? I use Songbird anyway and I'd be surprised if there isn't a plugin for that out or out soon.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 9, 2009)

I'm pretty clumsy but the Touch and the iPhone are surprisingly tough for, er, a handheld with a massive plate of glass on the front. I've dropped both on concrete before and they didn't care. Not that I'd make a habit of it.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Sep 9, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I'm pretty clumsy but the Touch and the iPhone are surprisingly tough for, er, a handheld with a massive plate of glass on the front. I've dropped both on concrete before and they didn't care. Not that I'd make a habit of it.



I've got my phone in a rubber case and when I'm outside in a waterproof phone sack...does ruin the sleek lines though. 

I wish that more manufactures did "tough" versions of their products. My new camera I can run under the tap and drop with impunity. I wish I could get a smartphone that did the same. That way I could convert to capacitive touch.


----------



## grit (Sep 9, 2009)

I carry a nano and iPhone as I can't afford to run my music and phone/web from the same device as it would just destroy the battery


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Sep 9, 2009)

I carry a spare battery 

I would like a nano type device for running, but can't justify for an activity that do for less the 3 hours a week.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 9, 2009)

grit said:


> I carry a nano and iPhone as I can't afford to run my music and phone/web from the same device as it would just destroy the battery



You know what - I used to worry about that and sniff at the idea of listening to music on my phone as it would use up the battery so that I wouldn't be able to make calls when I needed to.

However what I've discovered with the iPhone is that listening to music basically uses up no battery life. Even watching videos, actually, uses up very little, I can watch hours and hours before even getting close to exhaustion. What does eat the battery is playing stupid games and reading stupid websites all the time.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Sep 9, 2009)

I've found the worse culprit to be any app that uses GPS, which is understandable.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 9, 2009)

Yes. When I'm bored on the bus I like turning on the map and watching myself go down the road, and that eats about 1% every 10 seconds or something ridiculous like that.


----------



## Callum91 (Sep 9, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Yes. When I'm bored on the bus I like turning on the map and watching myself go down the road, and that eats about 1% every 10 seconds or something ridiculous like that.



There are groups that can help you with that problem.


----------



## editor (Sep 10, 2009)

Here's why there's no camera on the iPod Touch, according to Mr Jobs himself.


> There are quite a few reasons for the lack of camera in the iPod touch. Speaking to David Pogue, the Steverino himself picks a couple of them:
> 
> Q. You put a camcorder on the iPod Nano. Why not on the iPod Touch?
> 
> ...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 10, 2009)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Yes. When I'm bored on the bus I like turning on the map and watching myself go down the road, and that eats about 1% every 10 seconds or something ridiculous like that.



It's more fun on the DLR, not you know like I've ever done that...


----------



## editor (Sep 10, 2009)

One thing: could someone tell me exactly what was "rock and roll" about yesterday's event? 

Nora Jones? Lol.


----------



## grit (Sep 10, 2009)

editor said:


> I can't believe it took so long for Apple to get around to including an FM radio.



Apparently that was a decision that was made as Jobs didnt like the fact that he couldn't guarantee the quality of sound of an FM tuner.


----------



## jæd (Sep 10, 2009)

Of course, we all know that if there was camera on the Touch people would be going on about how expensive it is...


----------



## editor (Sep 10, 2009)

This journo is having a moan about Apple overhyping what was basically a load of minor updates and a crap camera (that can't even take stills) being stuck on an iPod. 

He's got a point, but such is Apple's media influence that I can't see any media blogs suddenly stopping themselves from dutifully dedicating disproportionate resources to cover these events. 





> *Apple events are now the epitome of dullness*
> Unveiling a shiny nano as 'one more thing' isn't enough
> 
> I say Apple is the victim of its own success, the sheer desirability of its products is so high that the mere thought of a new one is enough to send the media into a frenzy, and Apple isn't going to stop it.
> ...


----------



## jæd (Sep 10, 2009)

editor said:


> This journo is having a moan about Apple overhyping what was basically a load of minor updates and a crap camera (that can't even take stills) being stuck on an iPod.
> 
> He's got a point, but such is Apple's media influence that I can't see any media blogs suddenly stopping themselves from dutifully dedicating disproportionate resources to cover these events.



Apple rarely make large changes to products or add products out of the blue. They mostly just tweak existing products in new ways. 

Pundits get disappointed because they think that Apple wants to make cool stuff. They don't. They want to make cool stuff that _works really well_. And you don't do that by introducing a new product every year with a bazillion features. (See Nokia). You introduce a basic product, tweaking and refining it bit by bit until its done.


----------



## Pie 1 (Sep 20, 2009)

Heh.


----------



## editor (Feb 20, 2010)

> Apple 'obsessed' American couple marry at New York store on Valentine's Day
> 
> An American couple, Josh and Ting Li, who are obsessed with Apple products, have become the first to marry inside one of the technology giant’s stores.
> 
> ...


----------



## spacemonkey (Feb 20, 2010)

I thought this bump might be about the new Macbook Pro's.


----------



## editor (Feb 20, 2010)

spacemonkey said:


> I thought this bump might be about the new Macbook Pro's.


You should know by now that the entire store has to come down for any kind of minor product refreshes to be announced!


----------



## Sunray (Feb 22, 2010)

editor said:


> You should know by now that the entire store has to come down for any kind of minor product refreshes to be announced!



Clearly it doesn't, just another of Apple's clever marketing tricks.


----------



## editor (Feb 27, 2010)

Something to mull on while we're all playing with our shiny iPhones:



> Apple admits using child labour in China
> Apple has admitted that child labour was used at the Chinese factories that build its computers, iPods and mobile phones.
> 
> Apple has been repeatedly criticised for using factories that abuse workers and where conditions are poor. Last week, it emerged that 62 workers at a factory that manufactures products for Apple and Nokia had been poisoned by n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause muscular degeneration and blur eyesight. Apple has not commented on the problems at the plant, which is run by Wintek, in the Chinese city of Suzhou.
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7330986/Apple-admits-using-child-labour-in-China.html


----------



## Lazy Llama (Feb 27, 2010)

editor said:


> Something to mull on while we're all playing with our shiny iPhones:


Or Nokias.

Coincidentally Apple have published their Supplier Responsibility report - see The Register - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/26/apple_supplier_report/



> Apple audited 102 companies in 2009, up from 83 the previous year, in China, the Czech Republic, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and the US.


So at least they're trying to stop the bad practices, rather than just going with whoever is cheapest, regardless of other factors.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 27, 2010)

editor said:


> Something to mull on while we're all playing with our shiny iPhones:





Lazy Llama said:


> Or Nokias.
> 
> Coincidentally Apple have published their Supplier Responsibility report - see The Register - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/26/apple_supplier_report/
> 
> ...



Didn't know this...


----------



## editor (Feb 27, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> So at least they're trying to stop the bad practices, rather than just going with whoever is cheapest, regardless of other factors.


Looks like Nokia are making more effort:



> More workers poisoned by supplier for Apple, Nokia
> Nokia responds. Apple doesn't
> 
> The Taiwanese company that provides displays and electronic components for Apple, Nokia, and others has admitted that more employees than previously reported have been poisoned by an industrial chemical used in its manufacturing facilities.
> ...



I haven't seen anything about Apple or Nokia compensating the poisoned workers either.


----------



## editor (Mar 1, 2010)

Are you ready for Apple StoreStepGate?
http://gizmodo.com/5482132/apple-th...broken-step-from-their-new-york-store-on-ebay

Apparently, Jobs has a patent on their store steps too!


----------



## Crispy (Mar 1, 2010)

thrilling


----------



## Pie 1 (Mar 1, 2010)

editor said:


> [/url]
> 
> Apparently, Jobs has a patent on their store steps too!




God, you're really scrapping the barrel with this one.


----------



## WWWeed (Mar 1, 2010)

Pie 1 said:


> God, you're really scrapping the barrel with this one.



why do you think this?

I think its pretty stupid apples getting all anal over a step


----------



## tarannau (Mar 1, 2010)

Surely it's far more unbalanced and self defeating to spend the time picking out and highlighting that step story in the first place. Why?
High profile brand in care about shop design shocker. Awful.


----------



## Pie 1 (Mar 1, 2010)

WWWeed said:


> I think its pretty stupid apples getting all anal over a step



Yes it's rather silly & anal, but no more so than a 100 other stories of corporate silly buggers.

editor just can't resist an opportunity, the point being that even by his standards, this is pretty lame.

That is all.


----------



## editor (Mar 1, 2010)

Pie 1 said:


> God, you're really scrapping the barrel with this  one.


I  found it a moderately amusing Apple-related story that is attracting  attention in Apple-related websites, and seeing as this is an Apple-related thread I thought it might be of interest to people looking for Apple-related stories.

It's certainly more interesting than some of the pointless, off-topic, whiny shit you constantly pepper threads with, IMO.


tarannau said:


> Surely it's far more unbalanced and self  defeating to spend the time picking out and highlighting that step story  in the first place. Why?
> High profile brand in care about shop design shocker.  Awful.


See above.


----------



## editor (Mar 1, 2010)

You have to admire the speed that China knocks out Apple rip-offs!

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/01/keepin-it-real-fake-part-cclvii-ipad-meets-windows-7-sparks/


----------



## Cm7 (Mar 1, 2010)

editor said:


> You have to admire the speed that China knocks out Apple rip-offs!
> 
> http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/01/keepin-it-real-fake-part-cclvii-ipad-meets-windows-7-sparks/



My gosh! LOL!


----------



## exleper (Mar 1, 2010)

editor said:


> I  found it a moderately amusing Apple-related story that is attracting  attention in Apple-related websites, and seeing as this is an Apple-related thread I thought it might be of interest to people looking for Apple-related stories.


Reading the article, it's more to do with the glass company Seele than Apple.



> At the time of this posting, it has been seven full days since I put the listing up, and I havenʼt heard from Apple directly a single time.



From the comments:


> On another note, it is amazing how many idiots think that this is somehow Apple being evil. Apple never contacted this guy. Apple has nothing to do with this, except to ask the contractor to destroy the step like they instructed the contractor to do in the first place.
> 
> So much misplaced anti-Apple rage here, no doubt partially because of the grossly misleading headline. Sheesh, chill out Applephobes


----------



## editor (Mar 13, 2010)

> *Apple’s Claim to the Letter “i” – Rejected*
> 
> Apple’s claim to the letter “i” has come to a screeching halt as a trademarks tribunal has  rejected the company’s bid to stop a small company from using their  favorite letter of the alphabet.
> 
> ...


Would anyone, anywhere really confuse 'DOPi' for an Apple product?


----------



## stupid dogbot (Mar 13, 2010)

I don't really see what the fuss is about (from Apple), but I suspect this is pretty much the last we'll ever hear of DOPi...

It's a _shit_ name, anyway. Some unimaginative arse got _paid_ to think up that toss.


----------



## editor (Jul 1, 2010)

Looks like Apple users won't be getting Blu-Ray any time soon, it ever:

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/30/steve-jobs-suggests-blu-ray-not-coming-to-mac-anytime-soon/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 2, 2010)

Meh don't care, blu ray is a dead end given the move toward dlc...


----------



## Pie 1 (Jul 2, 2010)

editor said:


> Looks like Apple users won't be getting Blu-Ray any time soon


Not a big deal tbh - Blue Ray's hardly set the world on fire, has it? 

Consumer wise, with optical broadband etc, only ever getting faster & faster & faster - super duper quality movies downloaded legally via services like iTunes rental etc, or of course, illegally as ever, is the way it's all going.

Pro user wise - Archiving isn't really going to Blue ray either. With a terrabyte of HD costing around the same or less than 20 blue ray discs. (& if you are one of a global handful that use BR for archive, then you've already got a stand alone burner).
Again, with the optical pipes, cloud storage for large image/video data will become more realistic & problems for transfering huge image or video files will be laid to rest, all rendering BR disc storage kind of irrelivent.

Dead format in the long run, tbh.

E2A: can't recall the last time I used a dvd in the laptop & I don't even use the drive in the tower 'that' much - just burning a few images for clients & dvd's fine for that still - if it's a mega shoot, then I simlpy buy a small 250GB ext HD for them for £30.


----------



## Sunray (Jul 2, 2010)

Blue-ray is becoming the only cheap way, bar buying another hard disk, to back up large amounts of data for home users.

Nothing to do with movies.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jul 2, 2010)

I' have thought hard drives are about as cheap if not cheaper than getting a blu-ray burner and blu-ray recordable discs for backup no? 

You can get 2TB discs for £85ish now. Probably cheaper if you shop around.


----------



## Pie 1 (Jul 2, 2010)

Sunray said:


> Blue-ray is becoming the only cheap way, bar buying another hard disk, to back up large amounts of data for home users.



That's my point. 
£75 for 20 individual discs/cases & shelf space or £60 for a 1TB HD that takes up half the shelf space?

Blue ray is not a particuarly cheap or convienient option.


----------



## WWWeed (Jul 2, 2010)

Pie 1 said:


> That's my point.
> £75 for 20 individual discs/cases & shelf space or £60 for a 1TB HD that takes up half the shelf space?
> 
> Blue ray is not a particuarly cheap or convienient option.



Nor was DVD or CD when they where new technologies.

I see this as going to be a big issue for those who produce and edit video. Its just going to push more users over to PCs (like what is happening in the graphic design world thanks to things like flash!)


----------



## Pie 1 (Jul 2, 2010)

WWWeed said:


> Nor was DVD or CD when they where new technologies.
> 
> I see this as going to be a big issue for those who produce and edit video.



I don't.
Storage is on HD & transport is on small portable HD's, and as memory sticks get bigger, those as well
Whilst Blue Ray is also a good transport option, anyone who's using it seriously will have a burner anyway. Pro post studios etc, are multi machine networks anyway - just as with the dvd drives in individual machines in these outfits, the BR burner in any one machine wouldn't be used anyway so it's not really an issue for them.


----------



## Pie 1 (Jul 2, 2010)

Plus, with Final Cut Pro fast becoming the app of choice for this industry, they're kinda stuck with Macs for now


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2010)

You can get TEN 25GB discs for less than £12. I'd say that makes them an economical option, and they're a lot easier to transport/store/mail too. And of course, it's usually a bit easier to shove a BluRay film into your player than faff about with hard drives if you're in the living room.

BluRay is a useful option. It's a shame that Apple refuse to let their users have that choice.


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2010)

It is interesting to consider whether blu-ray has come too late, the writing is certainly on the wall for physical formats in the long-term, but I think its a close call, physical sales arent dead yet and so blu-ray probably has some years of life left in it yet. It may be the last physical format for video we get though.

Of course Apple also have an interest in promoting downloadable content as they can make a load of money off of that via itunes.

As for cost of blu-ray burning, discs etc, again its going to be interesting to see if it reaches sufficient levels of useage to bring the costs of the burners & media down to low levels. History suggests it will happen given more time, but again the times are changing.

As for pros wanting to author blu-ray films themselves, certainly it would be nice if Macs offered this, but full-on professionals with have other solutions for this anyway, involving proper authoring/duplication houses to make the actual blu-ray discs. Lower down the chain in the semi-pro, prosumer-etc arena I suppose there could be some demand, eg to burn your portfolio in a HD format that can be played on quite a lot of devices. But with blu-ray not yet ubiquitous its no cert that the client would have anything to play it on, so maybe digital computer formats via net, memory stick or burnt onto a normal dvd would be just as sensible an option at this stage.

As a consumer I really would like to be able to play blu-ray on my mac but Im also not keen to have any excuses to get yet another new mac so Im not too miffed.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Jul 2, 2010)

editor said:


> And of course, it's usually a bit easier to shove a BluRay film into your player than faff about with hard drives if you're in the living room.



I have a PS3.


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2010)

stupid dogbot said:


> I have a PS3.


This discussion isn't about your personal home set up. Try to broaden the scope of your comments and it might be more interesting for others.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 2, 2010)

Reading between the lines it looks to me like Apple didn't like the deal that Sony were offering about Blu-Ray - they've been faffing about on the issue for ages - and have basically now said "oh fuck it, won't make much difference anyway".

I don't think it's a particularly essential data storage system, except for certain applications (sending large chunks of data through the post or something). Apple already has Time Machine which is most of the backup a home user will ever need. I used to do timed backups of stuff onto DVD but it was such a pain - even when I was only putting in one or two DVDs - that I ended up not bothering. Now I use Time Machine and a net-based cloud backup service in case my TM disc dies at the same time as my computer.

Blu-Ray is basically for watching films on and yeah, that would be nice to have on consumer machines, clearly, but I think they're probably right that it wouldn't be crippling, with most casual film watchers streaming, downloading or using DVDs still, and other people having a Blu-Ray player. It's not yet a ubiquitous enough technology that people expect anything with an optical drive to be able to play them. It took a while for DVD drives to become standard issue on computers after all; I remember having to hunt around the office to find the PC with the DVD drive.


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2010)

It's clearly not essential, but it's pretty hard to argue for_ less_ choice for consumers. 

If I upgrade my PC, I'd probably get one with a BluRay recorder as it would be a handy and cheap way to back up my photos and music (as well as online/HD, natch).


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jul 2, 2010)

You can get BluRay drives for Macs, just you can't buy one built-in from Apple.
http://www.mcetech.com/blu-ray/

Apple haven't licensed the BluRay decoder for OS X so you can't play back BluRay movies. You can still read and write to BluRay disks if you attach one, and you can watch movies in Windows (via Bootcamp) on a Mac with a BluRay drive.

So it's only really an issue if you want to watch BluRay movies on a Mac under OS X.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Jul 2, 2010)

editor said:


> This discussion isn't about your personal home set up. Try to broaden the scope of your comments and it might be more interesting for others.



Jesus fuck, you're a snotty, patronising cunt.

Apologies for not having been quite as afflicted by this as you'd like all us Apple users to be!



Lazy Llama said:


> So it's only really an issue if you want to watch BluRay movies on a Mac under OS X.



Hence my comment...


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2010)

Bit of a pain if you're on the move with your laptop and want to watch Blu Ray movies though. Seems daft not to support such a popular format.


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2010)

stupid dogbot said:


> Jesus fuck, you're a snotty, patronising cunt.


Tssk! Language! 

As Steve Jobs might not have said: "Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a computer. Not worth it"


----------



## Kanda (Jul 2, 2010)

Yeah, I'm always carrying Blu-rays around with me.

Is it REALLY that popular?? How many BluRay discs do people here own and what do they play them on? My guess? Mainly PS3 owners... till they started downloading them and streaming them to the PS3


----------



## stupid dogbot (Jul 2, 2010)

editor said:


> Tssk! Language!
> 
> As Steve Jobs might not have said: "Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a computer. Not worth it"



So, the fact that the replacement BluRay drive in my MBP does actually burn and read the discs, and I have an alternative player isn't relevant, then?

It'd be awful if people who *actually own* Macs had a differing view of things, hmm.

Clearly, because it doesn't tally with your "NEWS STORY!!!!"


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2010)

Kanda said:


> Yeah, I'm always carrying Blu-rays around with me.
> 
> Is it REALLY that popular?? How many BluRay discs do people here own and what do they play them on? My guess? Mainly PS3 owners... till they started downloading them and streaming them to the PS3


Perhaps they'd be a bit more popular if Steve Jobs hadn't banned them off Macs!

FYI, 2.7m copies of Avatar on Blu Ray were shifted in just four days in the US, so I guess there must be some demand, and HMV are crediting Blu Ray sales for their rise in profits.


----------



## tarannau (Jul 2, 2010)

Jeepers, that's still a fairly small niche. Less than 10% of new 'official' sales are through Blu-Ray. That's disregarding existing film libraries fwiw and doesn't track the decline of physical media as the be all and end all either

I'd say that the vast majority of people won't miss BluRay very much at all, nor will they be deprived of other alternatives to watch a film. This is a minor concern at best to the huge swathes of users, albeit you're trying to trumpet it as as much bigger deal than it is. As flaming usual when it comes to all things Apple it has to be said

I see very few people with BluRay players in their front room fwiw - they'd tend to be outnumbered by those usisg PS3s or HDs in their living spaces like Dogbat here.


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2010)

tarannau said:


> I'd say that the vast majority of people won't miss BluRay very much at all, nor will they be deprived of other alternatives to watch a film.


So you'd prefer *not* to be offered the choice on your MacBook because that's what you seem to be arguing. If so, why? Why argue against more choice, more options. more alternatives? 

FYI: 





> UK sales of Blu-ray discs have grown by a whopping 50 per cent in the past year.
> 
> Revenues from Blu-ray in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2009 surged by 31 per cent, according to figures from the British Video Association.
> 
> ...


----------



## Kanda (Jul 2, 2010)

Clearly it's Steve Jobs fault that it's only 10% of new official sales


----------



## Kanda (Jul 2, 2010)

editor said:


> So you'd prefer *not* to be offered the choice on your MacBook because that's what you seem to be arguing. If so, why? Why argue against more choice, more options. more alternatives?
> 
> FYI:



Or you could ask why are YOU so bothered, not being a Mac owner...


----------



## Pie 1 (Jul 2, 2010)

editor said:


> You can get TEN 25GB discs for less than £12



Never heard of that brand though.
Trusted (imo) brand from that link
5x Verbatim £32 (250gb +£64)
5x TDK £15.99 (250gb + £32)
250gb ext HD's from fujitsu & seagate for under £40

I used no name/cheap brand dvd's once about 3 yrs ago & I have serious trouble accessing something off them earlier this year.
Got a few CD's from 2003/4 on cheapo discs that are unreadable now.

annnnyway...


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2010)

Kanda said:


> Clearly it's Steve Jobs fault that it's only 10% of new official sales


Whoops. You've got that figure a bit wrong.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jul 2, 2010)

editor said:


> Bit of a pain if you're on the move with your laptop and want to watch Blu Ray movies though. Seems daft not to support such a popular format.


Yeah, Microsoft don't support BluRay in Windows 7 either though - http://social.answers.microsoft.com...s/thread/36f826cd-db66-45e7-bfad-1ad7f37f42af


----------



## tarannau (Jul 2, 2010)

I'm not arguing against more choice. I just don't see a need for Blu-Ray support personally- I can't remember the last time I bought physical media. It's as irrelevant as the whole crew bemoaning the lack of a floppy disc drive on the imac to me. I could still buy a Blu Ray player if I really wanted, but it seems dooomed to be archaic frankly.

I don't honestly believe you have much interest in Blu Ray either tbh. This is just another transparent one of your attempts to focus on a deliberate omission from an Apple product and to go on ad nauseum about it - see cut and paste on iphone, lack of SD card slot on ipad and so on. Your modus operandi is well established and utterly predictable

Why not get a new angle? Apple don't want to deal with this niche - let it go? I'm really not sure even you've got the heartyourself out to be champion for BluRay simply to get in your usual anti_Apple distaste.

It's a minor thing to most of the people on this thread it seems. Hey ho


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2010)

Pie 1 said:


> Never heard of that brand though.
> Trusted (imo) brand from that link
> 5x Verbatim £32 (250gb +£64)
> 5x TDK £15.99 (250gb + £32)
> ...


Ah. So you don't like the brand. OK. 
How about Traxdata (20 discs for £24.50) or Verbatim, 10 pack for £33?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blu-Ray-HD-Disks-Blank-Media/s?ie=UTF8&rh=n:296735011&page=1


----------



## Pie 1 (Jul 2, 2010)

editor said:


> So you'd prefer *not* to be offered the choice



Your missing the point.
It's a very niche user market - esspecially on consumer home computers. Whats the point in putting something on all machines when in reality, no one (aside from a tiny majority that I know would include you) is going to bother using it. Esspecially further down the road.


----------



## Kanda (Jul 2, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> Yeah, Microsoft don't support BluRay in Windows 7 either though - http://social.answers.microsoft.com...s/thread/36f826cd-db66-45e7-bfad-1ad7f37f42af



So, basically the same reason as Apple. That's that done to death then.


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> Yeah, Microsoft don't support BluRay in Windows 7 either though - http://social.answers.microsoft.com...s/thread/36f826cd-db66-45e7-bfad-1ad7f37f42af


Except you can buy loads of Windows laptops with build in Blu Ray drives, so that's a bit of a non issue, really. 


tarannau said:


> I'm not arguing against more choice. I just  don't see a need for Blu-Ray support personally- I can't remember the  last time I bought physical media. It's as irrelevant as the whole crew  bemoaning the lack of a floppy disc drive on the imac to me. I could  still buy a Blu Ray player if I really wanted, but it seems dooomed to  be archaic frankly.
> 
> I don't honestly believe you have much interest in Blu Ray either tbh.  This is just another transparent one of your attempts to focus on a  deliberate omission from an Apple product and to go on ad nauseum about  it - see cut and paste on iphone, lack of SD card slot on ipad and so  on. Your modus operandi is well established and utterly predictable
> 
> ...


Actually, it's proving rather interesting watching you rushing to defend Steve Jobs' decision to give consumers *less* choice,  despite rising sales of Blu Ray discs and the obvious convenience of  being able to pop in a film when you're on the move.

It's a bit baffling really - you seem duty bound to defend the cause of Steve Jobs whenever I dare to cast even the slightest slur on any of his products. Weird. Anyway, I'll leave you to it because it's a bit like arguing with a fanatic, and you usually get personal after a while and that's really no fun.


----------



## tarannau (Jul 2, 2010)

I'm not rushing to defend anyhing you fruitloop. I've merely responded to your points, it being a lateral bulletin board format. The sense of desperation and you flailing around in search of a coherent point is palpable. As others have pointed out, Apple's stance is understandable and in keeping with other providers to this niche market, including Microsoft. It's only you frothing away in unbalanced fashion on the subject.

Honestly - get a grip. You're becoming a predictable joke when it comes your obvious bias and distortion. I have no wish to defend Jobs, but I'll happily take the piss out of a weak and desperate argument when I see it. 

You seem to be lacking for support here. I guess you'll accuse us all of being iborg or fanbois next.


----------



## Kanda (Jul 2, 2010)

I stopped buying Blurays when I bought Apple TV and could get films delivered in about 2 minutes as and when I wanted to watch them.

I'd like it enhanced to 1080p but it isn't much of a big deal. 

That clearly makes me a fanboi, or someone moving along with something that works for them.


----------



## Pie 1 (Jul 2, 2010)

editor said:
			
		

> It's a bit baffling really



It's not. 
What is baffling is you determined to twist this into a big bad Jobs bans issue, which is clearly not the case.


----------



## tarannau (Jul 2, 2010)

Come one lad, you just can't stop yourself leaping in to support Steve Jobs, even though you didn't mention him even in passing.

You're a fan and you can't deny. Or maybe someone's got some kind of twisted bee in their bonnet.


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2010)

tarannau said:


> I'm not rushing to defend anyhing you fruitloop. ... The sense of desperation and you flailing around in search of a coherent point is palpable...
> 
> Honestly - get a grip. You're becoming a predictable joke when it comes your obvious bias and distortion.


This is what I meant about you getting all personal. 

You're hurled personal abuse at me over multiple threads for months on end now - sometimes over matters as trivial as _the colour of a fucking smiley_ - and now you're off again over a bloody Blu Ray drive!

Some of that abuse has been quite close to the knuckle and I'd like you to stop now please. 

You're welcome to take the piss out my opinions and robustly argue the toss - banter is what drives this board - but your growing habit of spicing up your posts with slurs on my character, my honesty and other personal traits is not on.

Perhaps you're not even aware of how much abuse you've racked up over the months, but I've barely ever responded in kind, despite the provocation, so I'd like you to stop now.

If you're unable to do that, please stop responding to my posts.


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2010)

Pie 1 said:


> It's not.
> What is baffling is you determined to twist this into a big bad Jobs bans issue, which is clearly not the case.


Well no. I commented that he had banned Blu Ray, and then had people lining up to tell me that that restricting that choice for consumers was _actually a good thing._

I disagreed and offered some scenarios where Blu Ray discs are actually quite useful. 

Then it went a bit weird with people insisting the opposite.


----------



## tarannau (Jul 2, 2010)

Oh please, it's not just me finding your posts unbalanced, uninformed and more than a little unnecessary. I don't believe I've been rude, nor anywhere near as dismissive or controlling as you've attempted to be with Dogbat earlier. See endless examples

And as for personal slurs, you're far from above the same. Why all the shit about Steve Jobs when I didn't even mention him? Cut out the hypocrisy and try and think evenly, please

It's come to the stage when some of your own modding team, let alone other posters, have came to take the mick out of your blatant bias. I find that a little sad tbh, as does your constant dismissal that there may be an issue there. 

I can't tell you to change, but I can appeal to your better side. You're losing face and respect here not through any comments or actions of mine - it's the way you post and predicatably contribute on all things Apple that lead to these reactions.


----------



## Pie 1 (Jul 2, 2010)

editor said:
			
		

> Well no. I commented that he had banned Blu Ray



He hasn't banned it you muppet!
Apple computer have taken a business decision not to include - probably backed up by a shit load more evidence that you can muster.


----------



## tarannau (Jul 2, 2010)

Who has said that restricting choice for consumers is 'a good thing' by the way?

It's unnecessary distortions and misrepresentations of the debate like this that don't help fwiw.


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2010)

tarannau said:


> Who has said that restricting choice for consumers is 'a good thing' by the way?
> 
> It's unnecessary distortions and misrepresentations of the debate like this that don't help fwiw.


 No, really


----------



## tarannau (Jul 2, 2010)

Actually I'm fucking annoyed by the distortion that I've 'hurled personal abuse at me  (the Ed) over multiple threads for months on end now' fwiw.

This simply isn't true - you'll see plenty of theads (in the Brixton forum) for example where I've followed the Ed with nothing approaching a negative comment - from the greasiness of Pizzas to the appeal of Miss Frank iirc

Believe it or not I try and just deal with the strength of the argument in the post rather than the poster. I'm sorry if the Ed doesn't like that, but that was a ludicrous misrepresentation and poor me whinge of events. 

Feel free to check my posting record by all means. This is an unpleasant accusation frankly.


----------



## Winot (Jul 2, 2010)

As a disinterested observer, there seems to be a big clashing of egos on both sides.  This happens on all bulletin boards I've ever visited over the years, and is (generally) refreshingly absent on U75.  It would be a shame if it became an issue here, as it's pretty tedious to observe.


----------



## Pie 1 (Jul 2, 2010)

editor said:


> This is what I meant about you getting all personal.
> 
> You're hurled personal abuse at me over multiple threads for months on end now...Some of that abuse has been quite close to the knuckle and I'd like you to stop now please....slurs on my character, my honesty and other personal traits is not on....Perhaps you're not even aware of how much abuse you've racked up over the months...I'd like you to stop now....If you're unable to do that, please stop responding to my posts.



Oh, don't start this victim shit again once you're done trolling (yes , that's essentially what you've done today on this thread). 
This is exactly the type of crap you tried pulling on me with that "following you around the boards" bollocks a couple of months ago.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Jul 2, 2010)

Heheheh


----------



## tarannau (Jul 2, 2010)

I'm inclined to agree. The Ed sounds disturbingly like Trevhagl and his stalkers accusations with these groundless accusations.

I find it a little unpleasant and unnecessary if I'm honest. Anyone's welcome to check my posting record and I urge them to do so - the Ed's rant is well out of line with reality. 

There's a reason why his comments on the subject of Apple tend to get criticized, even mocked at times. And it's not personal, despite his best attempts to make it seem so. And nor is it because everyone else is a 'fanboy' in comparison


----------



## sim667 (Jul 2, 2010)

Winot said:


> As a disinterested observer, there seems to be a big clashing of egos on both sides.  This happens on all bulletin boards I've ever visited over the years, and is (generally) refreshingly absent on U75.  It would be a shame if it became an issue here, as it's pretty tedious to observe.



I just think its funy that they're basically arguing over microchips and a few nuts and bolts.


----------



## Kanda (Jul 2, 2010)

More Apple TV update rumours: http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/02...earing-up-to-take-apple-tv-to-the-next-level/



> Just over a month ago, Engadget reported that Apple is preparing a dramatic overhaul of the Apple TV hardware, planning to offer a new device "based directly on the iPhone 4" with the capability for 1080p HD output and only limited onboard storage, as the device would primarily stream media from the Internet. The revamped Apple TV was also said to be set to carry a price tag of only $99.
> 
> On a separate note, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster today released a report continuing to beat his drum predicting a future Internet-connected television from Apple. He sees the inclusion of an HDMI port on the new Mac mini and the rumors of a revamped Apple TV set-top box as part of a progression that will lead to the launch of an actual Apple television with integrated iTunes/Internet access within two to four years.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 3, 2010)

Kanda said:


> I stopped buying Blurays when I bought Apple TV and could get films delivered in about 2 minutes as and when I wanted to watch them.
> 
> I'd like it enhanced to 1080p but it isn't much of a big deal.
> 
> That clearly makes me a fanboi, or someone moving along with something that works for them.



You're fanboism is sickening...!


----------



## Kanda (Jul 8, 2010)

Facetime to Ipod Touch? http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/08...-camera-hd-video-recording-facetime-and-more/

That could be quite fucking huge.


----------



## Callum91 (Jul 8, 2010)

Kanda said:


> Facetime to Ipod Touch? http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/08...-camera-hd-video-recording-facetime-and-more/
> 
> That could be quite fucking huge.



If the new ipod Touch has the Retina screen , I'm buying one for sure.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 8, 2010)

Kanda said:


> Facetime to Ipod Touch? http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/08...-camera-hd-video-recording-facetime-and-more/
> 
> That could be quite fucking huge.



Yup. I expect we'll see iPad's with camera's next year which will widen the usage.


----------



## Crispy (Jul 8, 2010)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yup. I expect we'll see iPad's with camera's next year which will widen the usage.


I expect to see it for regular OSX too


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 8, 2010)

Crispy said:


> I expect to see it for regular OSX too



Yep me too.


----------



## sim667 (Jul 8, 2010)

Crispy said:


> I expect to see it for regular OSX too



tis the only way it'd be come really useable, integrate it into ichat.


----------



## dogmatique (Jul 8, 2010)

Seen this? 

http://www.theonion.com/video/new-apple-friend-bar-gives-customers-someone-to-ta,17693/


----------



## Callum91 (Jul 8, 2010)

dogmatique said:


> Seen this?
> 
> http://www.theonion.com/video/new-apple-friend-bar-gives-customers-someone-to-ta,17693/



Ed's gonna flip


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 8, 2010)

Heh he'll probably think it's real.


----------



## dogmatique (Jul 8, 2010)

I don't get you guys sometimes... Why would the Ed be mad?  It's an amusing pisstake on fanboiism.  What's not to like?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 8, 2010)

dogmatique said:


> I don't get you guys sometimes... Why would the Ed be mad?  It's an amusing pisstake on fanboiism.  What's not to like?



It is, it's fucking funny but see my point above.


----------



## Pie 1 (Jul 9, 2010)

dp


----------



## Pie 1 (Jul 9, 2010)

Love The Onion Apple piss takes.

The iStore


----------



## Crispy (Jul 9, 2010)

what's this?







it's a 3x3cm touchscreen






with apple's production codes on

 what's it for????


----------



## fen_boy (Jul 9, 2010)

iPad Nano.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 9, 2010)

Weird...there was that trackpad which some people thought would be announced at WWDC a few weeks back, maybe it's related to this?


----------



## elbows (Jul 9, 2010)

Well Ive speculated in the past that a touchpad thats a screen may happen one day, but 3cmx3cm is too small for that, unless they have done something strange and radical. So I would suspect its for a new ipod nano but whether its certain to launch or is just an experiment is another matter.


----------



## Crispy (Jul 9, 2010)

Some people think its for a new remote control, to go with a relaunched apple TV. 3x3 is about as big as 4 iPhone icons, which is about enough space for a TV interface. You could imagine using it with your thumb.  

Personally, i think this is from a manufacturing prototype of some sort. Might never see a real product.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 11, 2010)

Yeah I can see an Apple TV remote in this or maybe even a new shuffle ("This is the smallest touch screen music player in the world..." etc) but more I think about it the more it looks like a strategic leak to move things on from the iPhone 4 reception stories...


----------



## Crispy (Jul 15, 2010)

11.6" Macbook air?

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100715PD208.html

That's netbook territory. Betcha it won't be netbook prices!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 15, 2010)

Crispy said:


> 11.6" Macbook air?
> 
> http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100715PD208.html
> 
> That's netbook territory. Betcha it won't be netbook prices!



Definitly but it'll probably be drooled over by your average Apple fanboi...


----------



## Structaural (Jul 27, 2010)

New iMacs and some desktop trackpad device:

http://www.apple.com/imac/
http://www.apple.com/magictrackpad/


----------



## Crispy (Jul 27, 2010)

the trackpad does look nice. would be even nicer if you could get a stylus for it.


----------



## Structaural (Jul 27, 2010)

Crispy said:


> the trackpad does look nice. would be even nicer if you could get a stylus for it.


 
You could use a sausage 

but yeah a sub 100 quid stylus based trackpad would be v cool (I think wacom do a cheap one - the bamboo).


----------



## Structaural (Jul 27, 2010)

http://www.wacom.com/bamboo/bamboo_pen_touch.php touch or stylus.

Mind you I'd probably get one of those macpads if I had bluetooth on my desktop...just for the scrolling gestures


----------



## tarannau (Jul 27, 2010)

Stylus? How retrograde - it's something else that most would never use and that would get lost.  Come on peeps - there's Wacom if you need proper control and accuracy. 

It's a tempting bit of kit though, especially for non-techie types with limited mobility like my dad. I reckon he'd love that more than his present trackball. Personally I really like the mac trackpads too - I'd generally go for them over a mouse for my desktop too, not having much need to use design software or desire for gaming.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 27, 2010)

Structaural said:


> New iMacs and some desktop trackpad device:
> 
> http://www.apple.com/imac/
> http://www.apple.com/magictrackpad/



Er nice, I think?


----------



## Kanda (Jul 27, 2010)

Don't see the point. Seems more like an accessability device for people that struggle with Mice/Trackballs.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jul 27, 2010)

Anyone for the Apple Battery Charger? 

A snip at £25 including 6 NiMH AA batteries.


----------



## Crispy (Jul 27, 2010)

scrolling is so much nicer on those things...
not going to replace my mouse any time soon though

that's not a bad price for a decent charger, including batteries.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 27, 2010)

Yeah the MBP touch pad is a dream for scrolling and gestures...I see the iMac and Mac pro's have both been updated too...


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jul 27, 2010)

I'm also failing to see why a trackpad is better than a mouse?

I use a two-button microsoft bluetooth mouse with scroll-wheel paired with my macbook, it's fine and cost me less than 20 quid.


----------



## tarannau (Jul 27, 2010)

I'm pretty sure the trackpad should be easier on those with RSI and limited movement for a start.

Equally I should think it's often more pleasant to use, especially where space is at a premium. The multitouch gestures could aid productivity and ease of use in some areas too.

That said, it's a fucking steep price for a peripheral. Which isn't any great surprise given that this is one of Apple's most overpriced areas, but it's a little grating nonetheless.


----------



## Structaural (Jul 27, 2010)

anyone seen this before (I should probably start a thread) 10GUI:

http://10gui.com/video/


----------



## Structaural (Jul 27, 2010)

stupid boards...


----------



## Structaural (Jul 27, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> Anyone for the Apple Battery Charger?
> 
> A snip at £25 including 6 NiMH AA batteries.


 
I get a page not found (must have been the wrong price


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Jul 27, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> Anyone for the Apple Battery Charger?
> 
> A snip at £25 including 6 NiMH AA batteries.



yeah, I thought that.

I'd love one of those pads for my Windows 7 machine


----------



## editor (Jul 27, 2010)

Throbbing Angel said:


> yeah, I thought that.
> 
> I'd love one of those pads for my Windows 7 machine


You can always get a Bamboo Wacom for around £40
http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews_wacom_bamboo.php


----------



## Structaural (Jul 27, 2010)

tarannau said:


> I'm pretty sure the trackpad should be easier on those with RSI and limited movement for a start.
> 
> Equally I should think it's often more pleasant to use, especially where space is at a premium. The multitouch gestures could aid productivity and ease of use in some areas too.
> 
> That said, it's a fucking steep price for a peripheral. Which isn't any great surprise given that this is one of Apple's most overpriced areas, but it's a little grating nonetheless.



...same price at their wireless keyboard, though the fact that it's glass ups the price.

This would be excellent for my daughter who is just getting into the computer, but is struggling with the mouse at the mo (doesn't help that she's left handed), might go and take a look on the way home...


----------



## maldwyn (Jul 27, 2010)

I'm another one who prefers using a mouse with my MBP - in my case £10 from pcworld that gets flopped around something rotten.

A 27" Apple Cinema Display now available - I've got some slight yellowing on my ACD 24" screen, covered by applecare, what's my chance of get it replaced with a 27 incher?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 27, 2010)

Couple of news sites seem to think Apple are heralding the end of the mouse...


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2010)

Software update from Apple today enables inertia scrolling and 3 finger window dragging for macs with built-in trackpads from about late 2008 onwards. Yay.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 27, 2010)

It's also the same price as the Magic Mouse, which I wouldn't have bought individually, but which after I got one for free with my new iMac I find a bit indispensable. That's got a multi-touch surface so you can do, for example, two-finger swipes to go back and forward in a browser (or in the Finder or other compatible apps).


----------



## editor (Jul 27, 2010)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Couple of news sites seem to think Apple are heralding the end of the mouse...


If the price comes down to a fiver, maybe. For most people a crappy old mouse does the job just fine.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 27, 2010)

editor said:


> If the price comes down to a fiver, maybe. For most people a crappy old mouse does the job just fine.


 
I can see it or something like it replacing the mouse but it just 'feels' a little early to proclaim that Apple has ended the era of the mouse. Reckon it'll be another ten years before we can say that mouse has really had it's day...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 27, 2010)

Christ alive the anti Apple brigade are out in force on Gizmodo, some amazing comments about the track pad. No one seems to have clicked that they aren't forced to buy it!


----------



## editor (Jul 27, 2010)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Christ alive the anti Apple brigade are out in force on Gizmodo...


Use that phrase a few more times and urban 75 may lift itself out of its current impressively high #11 raning in Google search results and hit the top ten!

Here's one mo' to help you on your way: anti Apple brigade.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 27, 2010)

Stupid comments on Gizmodo? Inconceivable!

It's always been maybe one step above YouTube. If I ever get pissed off with posts on Urban I always know I can go to Gizmodo (or most gadget blogs actually) and be reassured that this place really isn't so bad.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 27, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Stupid comments on Gizmodo? Inconceivable!
> 
> It's always been maybe one step above YouTube. If I ever get pissed off with posts on Urban I always know I can go to Gizmodo (or most gadget blogs actually) and be reassured that this place really isn't so bad.


 
Oh yeah they're almost as bad as the commenters on CiF, u75 is practically utopia by comparison!


----------



## Structaural (Jul 28, 2010)

12 - core Mac Pros released yesterday, I wonder if those processors would drop in to an old 2007 mac pro. No prices as yet.

http://www.apple.com/macpro/


----------



## elbows (Jul 28, 2010)

Structaural said:


> 12 - core Mac Pros released yesterday, I wonder if those processors would drop in to an old 2007 mac pro.


 
Not likely.


----------



## elbows (Jul 28, 2010)

I do find it nice that the 27" iMac apparently has 2 hard drive spaces so you could have a SSD and a normal larger drive. Mind you Im sure Apples SSD prices are a bit silly.


----------



## editor (Jul 28, 2010)

Jemima at The Guardian gets a little over excited by the new Magic TrackPad and declares that "we'll all be using them in three years."

Subsequent reader comments make her look a bit silly.

Death to the mouse: Apple's trackpad hits the shops
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2010/jul/27/apple-magic-trackpad


----------



## Crispy (Jul 28, 2010)

Dunno, wouldn't be awful if the mouse died. They are uncomfortable to use for long periods


----------



## tarannau (Jul 28, 2010)

editor said:


> Jemima at The Guardian gets a little over excited by the new Magic TrackPad and declares that "we'll all be using them in three years."
> 
> Subsequent reader comments make her look a bit silly.
> 
> ...


 
I think that's over-egging it a bit - in the pattern of things it's likely to be another journo confidently saying something controversial in the certain knowledge it'll cause a reaction. I doubt you can read much more into it than that.

But, taking a step back, it's not that ridiculous a statement in the wider scheme of things. I'm of the generation that's grown up with a mouse in hand and it's second nature to ,me, but it's indicative to see elderly and younger first time users struggle with the things. They're a little fiddly to get used to, not that intuitive and cause a fair few uncomfortable stress injuries from unnecessary motion.

I suspect that the next generation will increasingly be a laptop generation, as accustomed to the trackpad, ipods and multitouch as the humble mouse. And for the majority of users there's little need for the greater accuracy that the mouse can provide - there's no reason why the two can't co-exist, but the mouse is more likely to move towards the specialised space, like a tablet or optional extra for types of work. I can honestly count on one hand the number of times I've felt inclined to reach for a mouse with my MBP in a few years - the apple trackpads are that convincing in use.

Multitouch surfaces are more compact, more intuitive, have less physical parts and are likely to cause less injuries. It's difficult not to see demand for them growing rapidly. In fact whilst the article and timescale may be hyperbolic, I don't think it's otherworldly or particularly worthy of ridicule. Proprietary designs and cost is more likely to hold back the rise of these trackpads more than anything else. I suspect we'll look back and see the mouse as archaic surprisingly quickly


----------



## editor (Jul 28, 2010)

There's no question that a lot of people will eventually move on to an alternative input device, but it's highly unlikely to be solely Apple's expensive - and for many people - over-engineered solution as the article states. 

A cheapo £5 mouse will continue to be ample for many people's needs and despite its lack of style, will provide a more efficient and useful way of interacting with computers for many functions. Similarly, for high end design, it's going to be hard to beat specialised tools like Wacom's tablets as most artists would rather draw with precise pens than big fingers.

The mouse will not be dead in three years and touch pads will not be the 'norm' for all users and that woman's a bit silly for suggesting such a thing.


----------



## Crispy (Jul 28, 2010)

editor said:


> There's no question that a lot of people will eventually move on to an alternative input device, but it's highly unlikely to be solely Apple's expensive - and for many people - over-engineered solution as the article states.


 
The article quite clearly does not say that the _magic trackpad_ will replace mice, just _trackpads in general_. And yes, there will be cheaper ones, who would have thought?

Also, I wouldn't call apple's trackpad "over-engineered". It's got one moving part and an on-off switch. Over-designed, or highly specced materials, maybe.

Also, I wouldn't call a mouse 'efficient' - you have to keep picking it up and putting it down, and make lots of tiny twitching movements. It's uncomfortable and bad for your joints. Touchpads let you move the whole forearm and switch between postures without any change in functionality.

Yes, the timescale in the article is optimistic, but I think mice will be confined to niches sooner rather than later.


----------



## editor (Jul 28, 2010)

Crispy said:


> The article quite clearly does not say that the _magic trackpad_ will replace mice, just _trackpads in general_.


Err, hello? The title of the article is: "*Death to the mouse: *Apple's trackpad hits the shops"


----------



## tarannau (Jul 28, 2010)

I'm not sure how a minimal pad with no moving parts is 'overengineered' to be fair. It's a really simple form factor 

This goes beyond style for me - it's potentially a much better example of form following function, fluid finger motions replacing less intuitive rotating and button/wheel based selection. But I'd agree that proprietary technologies and cost is likely to hold back adoption more than anything.


----------



## editor (Jul 28, 2010)

tarannau said:


> I'm not sure how a minimal pad with no moving parts is 'overengineered' to be fair. It's a really simple form factor


'Over-engineered' in the sense it costs £60 plus £25 for the batteries/charger and requires a Bluetooth enabled computer, offers advanced functionality that many users won't need and will be less accurate/efficient at some functions than a £1.99 mouse - why do you think so many MacBook users buy a mouse to go with their laptops? 

I think it's a lovely looking device, and for some will be an attractive and productive addition to their desktops, but it's not going to kill the mouse any time soon.

FYI, I've been using trackpads, mice and expensive Wacom tablets for years on end, and I still prefer to use a mouse for some functions.


----------



## Structaural (Jul 28, 2010)

I can barely use a mouse anymore after 5 years of using a Wacom. FPS games only.


----------



## Crispy (Jul 28, 2010)

editor said:


> 'Over-engineered' in the sense it costs £60 plus £25 for the batteries/charger and requires a Bluetooth enabled computer


 
"Over-priced" then

You don't need to spend 25 quid on batteries, they'r just AAs



editor said:


> Err, hello? The title of the article is: "*Death to the mouse: *Apple's trackpad hits the shops"


 
Oh, sorry, I read the article and took on board the general thrust of the argument, rather than taking the headline at face value. I'll be sure to do that next time.


----------



## editor (Jul 28, 2010)

Structaural said:


> I can barely use a mouse anymore after 5 years of using a Wacom. FPS games only.


I started to get RSI a few years back so use a Logitech button-laden mouse in my left hand and a Wacom tablet in my right. I think I'll upgrade to the Intuos4 soon as I'm still using an original tablet from something like 1998!

I'd love to have a tablet with a screen that I could directly sketch on to with a pen (hello, Courier!) but they're still monstrously expensive.


----------



## tarannau (Jul 28, 2010)

editor said:


> Err, hello? The title of the article is: "*Death to the mouse: *Apple's trackpad hits the shops"



Not sure why the facepalm is necessary here. To me that headline lays down a challenge to the mouse, not implies that it's going to die inevitably on the  vine. Not that treating a headline in isolation from the article is anything other than a mug's game



editor said:


> 'Over-engineered' in the sense it costs £60 plus £25 for the batteries/charger and requires a Bluetooth enabled computer...
> 
> FYI, I've been using trackpads, mice and expensive Wacom tablets for years on end, and I still prefer to use a mouse for some functions.


 
That's not overengineered though, that's just bloody costly. I don't really think the design or motions are filled with complex, surplus fripperies, which is what that term means to most. Nor is it vastly overpowered for use - if anything you seem to be implying the opposite. This is a less is more design really, not some overengineered things with 7 buttons, a scroll wheel and a flashing death light

Point taken about your personal preferences. But this is a mass market product and you're a tech adept internet design veteran with strong views - it's clearly never going to be of key appeal to niche markets


----------



## editor (Jul 28, 2010)

Crispy said:


> Oh, sorry, I read the article and took on board the general thrust of the argument, rather than taking the headline at face value. I'll be sure to do that next time.


Nice sarcasm, but you're still suffering curious reading comprehension skills on this one.

Not only is the article titled, "death to the mouse," but she constantly repeats that assertion:


> Why yet more fuss for yet another Apple product? Because it symbolises the end of an era - *the end of the mouse*. As ever, Apple's brilliance is in refining consumer electronics to a form factor usable by the mainstream; *the trackpad indicates the much needed death of the RSI-inducing mouse*



She concludes by saying "touchpads will be the norm" in three years. Do you think that will be the case, then?


----------



## editor (Jul 28, 2010)

tarannau said:


> But this is a mass market product and you're a tech adept internet design veteran with strong views - it's clearly never going to be of key appeal to niche markets


Actually, it's a high end product for a minority platform.


----------



## Structaural (Jul 28, 2010)

editor said:


> I started to get RSI a few years back so use a Logitech button-laden mouse in my left hand and a Wacom tablet in my right. I think I'll upgrade to the Intuos4 soon as I'm still using an original tablet from something like 1998!
> 
> I'd love to have a tablet with a screen that I could directly sketch on to with a pen (hello, Courier!) but they're still monstrously expensive.



There's a visualiser who comes in here with one - very nifty but so expensive.

I've just started working again after 9 months unemployment and the heavy Wacom photoshop retouching I'm doing has given me chronic carpal (I think it is anyway - shooting pains and numbnesswhen I straighten my arm). I've lessened it this week by pulling the pad closer and trying to keep my wrists straight. It's much better this week, just unfit wrists and hands I reckon 

I think the Bamboo style is the way forward, pen for precision and fingers and gestures for anything else. For desktops anyway. I don't get on with trackpads personally, I hate using laptops. Lack of use mostly though.


----------



## Crispy (Jul 28, 2010)

editor said:


> Nice sarcasm, but you're still suffering curious reading comprehension skills on this one.
> 
> Not only is the article titled, "death to the mouse," but she constantly repeats that assertion:
> 
> ...


 
No, as I said in my earlier post, I think she's being optimistic. But the general thrust of the argument is sound. The mouse is not an ideal pointing/moving device and it will be replaced by touchpads/displays in most general computing uses. The mouse will join the Stylus in professional niches. And in case you misread me, 



> The article quite clearly does not say that the magic trackpad will replace mice, just trackpads in general.



I meant that trackpads will replace mice. Not that the magic trackpad will replace trackpads, which would be insane.


----------



## Crispy (Jul 28, 2010)

editor said:


> Actually, it's a high end product for a minority platform.


 
*inserts a massive crowbar between the concepts "Apple Trackpad" and "Generic Trackpad" in editor's mind*


----------



## tarannau (Jul 28, 2010)

editor said:


> Actually, it's a high end product for a minority platform.


 
Hyperbolic nonsense. This is already seemingly offered as a standard input device on all mac desktops now, significant numbers of which go into the educational market and other sectors you'd struggle to characterise as high end. Not is it necessary to paint Apple as the only supplier of trackpads forevermore

Why you have to be so careless about your choice of language is beyond me. Between that and the haste to post rolleyes, it's almost as though you're trying to provoke an argument.


----------



## editor (Jul 28, 2010)

tarannau said:


> Hyperbolic nonsense... Why you have to be so careless about your choice of language is beyond me..


So a £60 input device is not "high end" compared to a £1.99 mouse, and Apple are not a minority platform? 


What planet are you on, squire?


Crispy said:


> *inserts a massive crowbar between the concepts "Apple Trackpad" and "Generic Trackpad" in editor's mind*


He was *specifically* talking about the Apple trackpad, you ninny. But do you think that most people will be using trackpads in three times, then?

Anyway, it's all going a bit weird now, so I'll leave the Apple Defence Force to it.

*shakes head and leaves....


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jul 28, 2010)

The Apple Magic Trackpad works on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 as well as OS X 10.6


----------



## twistedAM (Jul 28, 2010)

editor said:


> Anyway, it's all going a bit weird now, so I'll leave the Apple Defence Force to it.
> 
> *shakes head and leaves....



...and goes onto Facebook for a little rant


----------



## tarannau (Jul 28, 2010)

Don't trouble this discussion with facts LL. Ed's far too busy tossing off rolleyes, sneerinf about 'minority platforms' and  bandying about phrases like 'high end,' 'overengineered' and 'Apple defence force' for little constructive or apparent reason. It's clear he doesn't even understand the meaning of 'overengineered,' not that he seems to feel any culpability for his own choice of words. It's all other people who are being 'weird' apparently. 

<snigger>


----------



## Crispy (Jul 28, 2010)

editor said:


> Apple Defence Force


----------



## Kanda (Jul 28, 2010)

twistedAM said:


> ...and goes onto Facebook for a little rant


 
He posted that one last night.


----------



## editor (Jul 28, 2010)

twistedAM said:


> ...and goes onto Facebook for a little rant


You are the newly crowned King of Wrong. 

I haven't posted any comments about this thread or the Magic Trackpad on Facebook at any time ever in the whole history of me posting on Facebook.

Now that that's cleared up, I'll leave tarannau to his sniggering.

Ifankyew.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 28, 2010)

editor said:


> So a £60 input device is not "high end" compared to a £1.99 mouse, and Apple are not a minority platform?
> 
> 
> What planet are you on, squire?
> ...


 
ADF? LOL! I think apple fanboi is a better term than one that implies some kind of terrorist organisation...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 28, 2010)

tarannau said:


> I think that's over-egging it a bit - in the pattern of things it's likely to be another journo confidently saying something controversial in the certain knowledge it'll cause a reaction. I doubt you can read much more into it than that.
> 
> But, taking a step back, it's not that ridiculous a statement in the wider scheme of things. I'm of the generation that's grown up with a mouse in hand and it's second nature to ,me, but it's indicative to see elderly and younger first time users struggle with the things. They're a little fiddly to get used to, not that intuitive and cause a fair few uncomfortable stress injuries from unnecessary motion.
> 
> ...


 
Think there's something to this, especially the bit about a generation growing up mainly using laptops and touch screen devices. Reminds me a bit about Steve Jobs line about trucks and cars...


----------



## twistedAM (Jul 28, 2010)

editor said:


> You are the newly crowned King of Wrong.
> 
> I haven't posted any comments about this thread or the Magic Trackpad on Facebook at any time ever in the whole history of me posting on Facebook.
> 
> ...



ah sorry it was 22 hours ago via Twitter for Android. I should pay more attention


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 28, 2010)

I don't think a little trackpad is really going to make a lot of overall difference - multi-touch pads/mice are nice but not groundbreaking. It's just a version of mice or pads with wheels or balls or whatever. Good luck to people who like it; more personal preference than anything.

Touch *screens* are different. The experience of having a web page or app there in front of you as a visual object, and interacting with it directly with your fingers rather than via some intermediary UI device - and having the whole thing there, rather than a small view of it as with a touch phone - *is* gamechanging. I keep touching my laptop's screen now after using the iPad and expecting to go to links. There's a basic difference in the relationship between user and content.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 28, 2010)

Oh, and to add to that: obviously Apple didn't invent the touch screen, but the iPad is the first successful tablet, and quite a lot of that is I think to do with the Safari on it (performance and UI) which really is good. iPhone Safari was really good and iPad Safari is also really good. I think it's easy to forget just how much better they were than any existing mobile browser at the time, and for that matter still are.


----------



## Crispy (Jul 28, 2010)

What you just said

Have you got icab mobile yet? Renders like safari, but has proper tabs, downloads, fullscreen option, loads of options. Feels like a proper browser compared to safari's toy box


----------



## Kanda (Jul 29, 2010)

Well.. I was bored waiting for a late friend at Oxford Circus tonight, so I went and bought a Magical lifesaving revolutionary trackpad....  I'm battered but it seems easy, full review later... like it so far! Anyone want a Magic Mouse?


----------



## Kanda (Jul 30, 2010)

Having used it for a bit... it's silly to compare it to a tablet by Wacom or whoever. Quite an interesting interface/device. I like it so far, but, as said, am pissed.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jul 30, 2010)

Comes accross as more of an expensive solution to a non-existent problem for me. But I'm prepares to be convinced otherwise.


----------



## Kanda (Jul 30, 2010)

skyscraper101 said:


> Comes accross as more of an expensive solution to a non-existent problem for me. But I'm prepares to be convinced otherwise.


 
There's no real reason to buy it tbh. Like the iPad, iPhone, magic mouse etc. But it is quite nice.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 30, 2010)

Kanda said:


> Well.. I was bored waiting for a late friend at Oxford Circus tonight, so I went and bought a Magical lifesaving revolutionary trackpad....  I'm battered but it seems easy, full review later... like it so far! Anyone want a Magic Mouse?


 
I'll have your magic mouse.


----------



## Kanda (Jul 30, 2010)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I'll have your magic mouse.


 
It's going into my decks flightcase... paired with my Mac Pro.. sorry!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 30, 2010)

Lame ass.


----------



## maldwyn (Jul 30, 2010)

Apples return to  Covent Garden Sat 7th August

http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/coventgarden/?cid=CDM-EU-3001&cp=em-3001-3001&sr=em


----------



## editor (Aug 2, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> The Apple Magic Trackpad works on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 as well as OS X 10.6


Well, not really:


> Using Magic Trackpad with a Windows PC
> The stuff looks tempting but Apple’s marketing brochure clearly states that you need a Bluetooth-enabled Mac computer running Mac OS X Snow Leopard in order to use the Magic Trackpad. There’s absolutely no mention of Windows anywhere in the specs.
> 
> That said, it appears that you can actually use Apple’s Magic Trackpad with your Windows desktop. First comes this confirmation from a CNET writer who says:
> ...





maldwyn said:


> Apples return to  Covent Garden Sat 7th August


Thank fuck I'll be nowhere near there on Saturday.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Aug 3, 2010)

I didn't say it was magic on Windows, I said it works.  
And it does.


----------



## editor (Aug 3, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> I didn't say it was magic on Windows, I said it works.
> And it does.


Yes, it 'works' with all the finesse and power of a Ferrari being pulled by a cart horse.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Aug 3, 2010)

As it works as pretty much every other trackpad does on Windows, I guess that makes Windows "a cart horse".

I'd go for "mule" myself. 

Or "ass"


----------



## editor (Aug 3, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> As it works as pretty much every other trackpad does on Windows, I guess that makes Windows "a cart horse".


Not exactly. The Apple £60 trackpad operates as well as a cheap trackpad from Taiwan on Windows - there are loads of trackpads offering much more functionality for less. 

Indeed, something like the Wacom Bamboo offers far superior capabilities and is, of course, a whole load cheaper than Apple's seriously crippled Windows offering.


----------



## Crispy (Aug 3, 2010)

the wacom is a graphics tablet


----------



## editor (Aug 3, 2010)

Crispy said:


> the wacom is a graphics tablet


Err, the bamboo is touch sensitive and uses similar multi-touch gestures to Apple's Trackpad.



> If you're already familiar with touch on small, laptop trackpads and popular mobile devices, you'll find that Bamboo's generous surface area provides more room to perform these gestures. The larger touch area also accommodates a wider range of hand sizes, helping ensure a more comfortable and natural touch experience.
> 
> With Bamboo, Wacom introduces nine key gestures:
> 
> ...


----------



## Crispy (Aug 3, 2010)

Oh I see


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 3, 2010)

Maybe my fingers are just retarded, but I prefer a good mouse over a trackpad anyway. It feels more precise, and quicker. Him indoors always uses a mouse with our laptop, although I can't be bothered because we've currently got a really shitty mouse. Might consider one of the Magic Meeces. They you get a bit of both worlds. And I don't care about the price.


----------



## Structaural (Aug 3, 2010)

I reckon for sitting there surfing the web, it's ideal, which I spend an inordinate amount of time doing. Scroll-wheels give me RSI after a while. I use a button on my wacom pen to inertial scroll with a sweep but fingers would be even easier, I'd love this intuis3 to accept fingers, too . Back on the mouse/pen when you want more accuracy. I'm skint though, maybe next month.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 3, 2010)

Actually, reviews of the magic mouse sound like it's pretty shit.

And so my search for a decent mouse continues ...


----------



## teuchter (Aug 3, 2010)

*Apple Crisis*

There has been some kind of fire or something at the Regent St store.

Customers can't go in and are all crowded round the entrance door.

It looked like something fairly minor but there are people in hi-vis vests with the apple logo and "crisis team" written on them. Therefore it must be a crisis.


----------



## Kanda (Aug 3, 2010)

*iPad Drives Apple to Third Place Among Global Portable Computer Manufacturers*

Blimey! 



> _"When including the iPad as part of the NB [notebook] market," he writes, "Apple leapt over Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba and Dell in terms of global unit share."
> 
> Viewed this way, Apple goes from being No. 7 in the worldwide portable computer market to No. 3, after only Hewlett Packard (HPQ) and Acer. And it's not stopping there, says Whitmore._


----------



## editor (Aug 3, 2010)

From Twitter: 





> alantwentyseven Apple Store on Regent St has been evacuated; fire next door. The concentration of floppy fanboy fringes per sq meter is looking dangerous.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 3, 2010)

Kanda said:


> *iPad Drives Apple to Third Place Among Global Portable Computer Manufacturers*
> 
> Blimey!



Blimey is right, given how they've basically come into a market with long time corporations in it. Incredible rise really...


----------



## Structaural (Aug 3, 2010)

Vintage Paw said:


> Actually, reviews of the magic mouse sound like it's pretty shit.
> 
> And so my search for a decent mouse continues ...


 
Id recommend a Logitech (they make various), they work a treat on the mac and loads of buttons....


----------



## Crispy (Aug 3, 2010)

Yep, MX518 is a nice one, wired. Any other with the same shape can be recommended, although I think they've discontinued the bluetooth one. I had to get mine through ebay.


----------



## editor (Aug 3, 2010)

I've been using Logitech mice/mouses/meeces for ages without complaint. It's worth getting one that 'docks' into a recharging port though if you go wireless.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 3, 2010)

I'm happy to used wired, to be honest. Thanks for the rec. I did actually really like the mighty mouse. Its tiny omni-directional scroll button thing was really excellent - great for scrolling around pictures quickly and easily in photoshop, for example. Of course, I had 3 of them, each replaced under warranty as the ball fucked up. They would clean up okay using the usual methods described online for a while, until the ball got pissed off with all the rubbing on paper and stopped either rolling or clicking.  If I could get something with a similar omni-directional scroll ball it'd be brilliant. All I've seen is those massive scary looking things with mammoth balls. (rofl)


----------



## editor (Aug 3, 2010)

Having to change a mouse *three* times under warranty is more than a tad inconvenient. Mine always last for years, and they get very heavy usage indeed. Out of curiosity, have you tried tablets like the new Apple one or the Wacom bamboo?


----------



## Crispy (Aug 3, 2010)

Have you tried the Magic Mouse, VP? You can scroll in all directions, with a two-fingered drag on top of it. Not tried it myself so no idea how comfortable it is.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 3, 2010)

editor said:


> Having to change a mouse *three* times under warranty is more than a tad inconvenient. Mine always last for years, and they get very heavy usage indeed. Out of curiosity, have you tried tablets like the new Apple one or the Wacom bamboo?



Yes, it was fucking annoying. Stupid ball. When it worked, it was perfect. Problem was, it broke. Often. A quick look at reviews of it online will show how common a problem it is/was. I haven't used the tablet or bamboo et al. I'm wary since I prefer using a mouse over my laptop trackpad. I know there are more gestures available now (I've got the last black macbook before they brought out the alum ones), but can it really be that much different?



Crispy said:


> Have you tried the Magic Mouse, VP? You can scroll in all directions, with a two-fingered drag on top of it. Not tried it myself so no idea how comfortable it is.


 
No, not yet. I went into the Apple store a couple of times but there was always some snotty kid using the one on display (small shop). Had a look at reviews of it today and it seems like you either love it or hate it. One person flagged up that because the whole surface is a scrollable, even just going to click can make you scroll if you're not careful. Now, that would be annoying. Another few saying it's a bit heavy, not that ergonomically suited to longer periods of use, etc.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 3, 2010)

I like the one I have - I was very keen on the Mighty Mouse except for the crippling flaw of the ball always getting gummed up and being uncleanable, and while the Magic doesn't have quite as good a scroll as the Mighty (it can take multiple swipes to scroll all the way over a page, and it isn't as controllable) at least it will never get gummed up, and some of the swipe gestures are handy.

It's not heavy at all, that one is just bollocks. I've had the odd accidental scroll.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 23, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I like the one I have - I was very keen on the Mighty Mouse except for the crippling flaw of the ball always getting gummed up and being uncleanable, and while the Magic doesn't have quite as good a scroll as the Mighty (it can take multiple swipes to scroll all the way over a page, and it isn't as controllable) at least it will never get gummed up, and some of the swipe gestures are handy.
> 
> It's not heavy at all, that one is just bollocks. I've had the odd accidental scroll.



Yeah, I always take online customer reviews with a pinch of salt, one size doesn't fit all, etc.

Anyway, I'm going to be getting one of these this week (with a side order of new imac ) so I'll know how it handles soon enough.


----------



## sim667 (Aug 23, 2010)

As far as the mighty mouse goes you can clean the trackball by holding the mouse upside down and rubbing the ball up and down a4 paper for a couple of minutes.

It is a complete design flaw, i just struggle on with mine.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 23, 2010)

After which it takes about five minutes to gum up again. Unless I have unusually mucky fingers. Which is possible actually.


----------



## Winot (Aug 23, 2010)

I am enjoying the Magic Trackpad except for its irritating habit of going to sleep and losing bluetooth connection.  That is all.


----------



## editor (Aug 23, 2010)

Winot said:


> I am enjoying the Magic Trackpad except for its irritating habit of going to sleep and losing bluetooth connection.  That is all.


You could always botch it to be USB powered.
http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/power-your-apple-magic-trackpad-by-usb-hack-20-08-2010/


----------



## sim667 (Aug 23, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> After which it takes about five minutes to gum up again. Unless I have unusually mucky fingers. Which is possible actually.


 
I normally give it 35 mins as an average.


----------



## Gromit (Aug 23, 2010)

teuchter said:


> There has been some kind of fire or something at the Regent St store.
> 
> Customers can't go in and are all crowded round the entrance door.
> 
> It looked like something fairly minor but there are people in hi-vis vests with the apple logo and "crisis team" written on them. Therefore it must be a crisis.


 
Did a member of staff suddenly realise high-fives are stupid and they have quarantined him before the concept spreads?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 24, 2010)

Dear urban,

If one installs windows as well as osx, does that mean that when using windows you're open to the usual PC attacks, or do you still benefit from that relative safety of using a mac (i.e. not many people write malicious stuff for them)?

Also, if I was setting up a new mac, but hadn't decided whether I was going to install windows at some point in the future or not, what should I do? Partition the hdd anyway (and what sort of size, from a 1T hdd, should I be partitioning?); or go ahead as is (in other words, can you do it at a later date without wiping whatever you've already got on there)?

Many thanks.


----------



## Kanda (Aug 24, 2010)

Still open to the usual Windows attacks. they attack the OS, not the hardware (generally)


----------



## Crispy (Aug 24, 2010)

Bootcamp setup will create a partition for you and resize your existing one to fit - just don't already have some freaky partition setup. - the tool won't like that.

Assigning 15-25GB to Windows partiton would seem reasonable. More than enough space for any apps. Documents can live on your OSX partition (which you can get Windows to read, but not write).

_Then_ install Parallels and you can make it boot your bootcamp partition in a virtual machine. So you only need one Windows install and can VM/native it depending on your needs. Running in the VM allows you to map Windows folders to OSX ones, allowing ful read/write to your OSX docs.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 24, 2010)

Thanks dudes. I shall just set it up as normal then, and worry about bootcamp and viruses later.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 24, 2010)

I actually use Oracle Virtualbox to run a Windows VM nowadays, rather than shell out to upgrade to Parallels 5, and it works very well. And is also free.


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Aug 25, 2010)

Apple patents iMac that converts into an iPad at the touch of a button

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...converts-iPad-touch-button.html#ixzz0xZGrFxRt


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 25, 2010)

Guess it makes sense they'd go down that route really...


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Aug 25, 2010)

I suppose so.

I must admit to wanting a laptop device where the screen detached from the keyboard, but was still usable for browsing/screen input, for years. I suppose it was seeeing my frst tablet laptop that did that. Well before the ipad was on the scene - but the ipad doesn't do that anyway.

the lenovo U1 does but hasn't materialised yet


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 25, 2010)

Throbbing Angel said:


> Apple patents iMac that converts into an iPad at the touch of a button
> 
> Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...converts-iPad-touch-button.html#ixzz0xZGrFxRt


 
I love how the first comment I read on that story is some guy kicking off about computer hackers


----------



## Crispy (Aug 25, 2010)

Throbbing Angel said:


> I suppose so.
> 
> I must admit to wanting a laptop device where the screen detached from the keyboard, but was still usable for browsing/screen input, for years.


 
Microsoft had a technology like this way back in 2000, called Mira or Smart Display. How iPad does this sound?



> during his Comdex keynote in November 2000, Gates demonstrated: Think of the applications and features you use on your PC, and then consider whether some of them would be easier or better used away from the desk and room where the PC lives. One of the most obvious uses is reading news and other Internet content (browsing the web). Wouldn't it be more comfortable to do it in an easy chair or on the couch with a Mira mobile monitor? But don't stop there -- what about reading and responding to email, doing instant messaging, reviewing your personal finances, planning a trip with mapping software, doing crossword puzzles, viewing and editing photos, playing solitaire, doing minor editing with a productivity application, playing and managing MP3 files, sharing your photo albums with friends, reading ebooks, listening to Internet radio stations, or reading endless documents and presentations from work?



They ran windows CE and Remote Desktop to take the PC's screen with you round the house. When docked, they'd be a regular VGA screen. Unfortunately, Windows XP licensing forbids more than one user per system, so undocking the Mira device would lock up the home PC. Yet another case of bad inter-departmental planning at Microsoft. The Register nailed it at the time. They sold very poorly and hardly any were made.


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Aug 25, 2010)

crispy - that's sort of what i had in mind.

When I only had a desktop, I yearned for a screen/keyboard combo or screen only that linked wirelessly to the computer box.

The line of thinking is correct - you do some things at desks, some others on the sofa and some others barricaded in the bathroom with the blinds down.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 25, 2010)

Throbbing Angel said:


> The line of thinking is correct - you do some things at desks, some others on the sofa and some others barricaded in the bathroom with the blinds down.


 


I love that microsoft advert where the guy is sat on his sofa saying the 'hide browser history' function is excellent because when his wife comes home he can make sure she doesn't find out he's been online "buying her a gift".



Yeah.

(But seriously, MS spent all that money making an advert for something that we've all been able to achieve for years by using the very simple clear browsing history function that is present in every browser known to human kind. Tossers.)


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Aug 25, 2010)

yeah, now if only there was some way to get the jizz off the curtains - he'd be sorted - in 7 seconds!


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 25, 2010)

Throbbing Angel said:


> yeah, now if only there was some way to get the jizz off the curtains - he'd be sorted - in 7 seconds!


 


Anyway, harking back to a previous question about mouses/mice  I'm currently using my lovely new Magic Mouse, and it's working well. (The teeny wireless keyboard takes some getting used to, but it's cute <-- this is why I'm perfect Apple fodder.) 

Got a new iMac 21.5" (i3 3.2ghz model). The old iMac had a borked screen, was out of warrenty. It needed a new panel and really, I used the fact it would cost a couple of hundred (or more) to replace as a handy excuse to upgrade (well, it's been 4.5 years). 

It's very lovely. Doing the obligatory favourite software installation now.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 25, 2010)

Gah! I just made the mistake of calibrating the screen (got an old Spyder2Pro that serves me well on my macbook and previous imac) and it's all pink! May have another go. (I wonder if it's an effect of the led screen? I wouldn't have thought so )


----------



## Structaural (Aug 25, 2010)

Vintage Paw said:


> Gah! I just made the mistake of calibrating the screen (got an old Spyder2Pro that serves me well on my macbook and previous imac) and it's all pink! May have another go. (I wonder if it's an effect of the led screen? I wouldn't have thought so )


 
you didn't use the sucker bit did you? It should hang loose on LCDs

Otherwise I'm not sure, did you pick 6500 colour temp and 2.2 gamma?


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 25, 2010)

Structaural said:


> you didn't use the sucker bit did you? It should hang loose on LCDs
> 
> Otherwise I'm not sure, did you pick 6500 colour temp and 2.2 gamma?


 
No, I didn't. I've re-calibrated and it's fine now. No idea what happened. No matter.

In other news, the Magic Mouse is a flaming dream for scrolling quickly back to the top of urban


----------



## gabi (Aug 26, 2010)

New iPod on Sep 1 with dual cameras. wicked.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Aug 26, 2010)

gabi said:


> New iPod on Sep 1 with dual cameras. wicked.


 
That'll be why you get a free touch when you order an imac as a student atm then


----------



## skyscraper101 (Aug 26, 2010)

This is good news.

I've given up on the iPod touch ever reaching the capacity of the iPod classic's 160gig so I may keep my classic and get a minimal capacity touch for all the non music things you can do with it.


----------



## editor (Aug 26, 2010)

skyscraper101 said:


> This is good news.


It's also very unconfirmed news.


----------



## ShiftyBagLady (Aug 26, 2010)

oops


----------



## teuchter (Aug 26, 2010)

Why has the iPhone thread been closed?


----------



## maldwyn (Aug 26, 2010)

teuchter said:


> Why has the iPhone thread been closed?


 
It's probably to allow the Android thread time to catch up.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 26, 2010)

I'm surprised there hasn't been widespread outrage amongst the iPhone people yet.


----------



## editor (Aug 26, 2010)

teuchter said:


> Why has the iPhone thread been closed?


It was clumsy Crispy with his unique penchant for accidentally closing threads.


----------



## paolo (Aug 26, 2010)

teuchter said:


> I'm surprised there hasn't been widespread outrage amongst the iPhone people yet.


 
We don't do outrage. Our lives are so full of wonder and joy. Join us. Joiiiin uuus.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 26, 2010)

paolo999 said:


> We don't do outrage. Our lives are so full of wonder and joy. Join us. Joiiiin uuus.


 
Resistance is futile...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 30, 2010)

So it looks like the Shuffle is going and the Nano is shrinking to a square little touch screen this week...?


----------



## Lazy Llama (Aug 30, 2010)

I'm in the building next to the one where the Apple event is being held tomorrow. 
The building has the big "guitar with apple-shaped sound hole" image across the whole front.


----------



## Structaural (Aug 31, 2010)

AutoCAD coming back to the mac and also an iPhone version (how the hell is that going to work?) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/technology/31autodesk.html?_r=1&src=busln


----------



## Crispy (Aug 31, 2010)

iDevice version will just be for viewing files and redline markups. This will be fantastic for my work


----------



## teuchter (Aug 31, 2010)

I didn't know Autocad was ever on the Mac before.

Crispy, there has been some talk with workmates here about persuading the boss to invest in an iPad or similar device to take on site.... it would be simply marvellous to be able to dispense with walking around with unwieldy bundles of paper drawings.


----------



## Crispy (Aug 31, 2010)

God yes, my boss is getting one and I hope to use it for exactly that.


----------



## Structaural (Aug 31, 2010)

Crispy said:


> iDevice version will just be for viewing files and redline markups. This will be fantastic for my work


 
I thought you'd like that info


----------



## gabi (Sep 1, 2010)

Geeks are preparing.

http://gizmodo.com/5626542/apple-ipod-and-music-meta+liveblog-tomorrow

Bonkers decision as usual from Apple to only allow streaming of the keynote on an Apple product. Such dicks.


----------



## Kanda (Sep 1, 2010)

gabi said:


> Bonkers decision as usual from Apple to only allow streaming of the keynote on an Apple product. Such dicks.


 
There's a reason behind it, there are also workarounds so it's not only Apple products... 

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/08/31/apple-to-provide-live-video-stream-for-media-event/


----------



## gabi (Sep 1, 2010)

Kanda said:


> There's a reason behind it, there are also workarounds so it's not only Apple products...
> 
> http://www.macrumors.com/2010/08/31/apple-to-provide-live-video-stream-for-media-event/


 
Whats the reason? Surely it might be a smart marketing move to allow curious PC users a look at this nonsense?


----------



## Kanda (Sep 1, 2010)

Read the link, also this one: http://www.macrumors.com/2010/09/01...-keynote-stream-requirements-and-workarounds/

Can't be arsed to argue about it, just saying there is a reason.


----------



## gabi (Sep 1, 2010)

To show off non-flash then? ok..

Should still allow a flash version though. dicks.


----------



## Kanda (Sep 1, 2010)

Possibly related to this too: http://www.macrumors.com/2010/08/31...tly-watch-itunes-store-video-content-on-ipad/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

gabi said:


> To show off non-flash then? ok..
> 
> Should still allow a flash version though. dicks.


 
Clever move to test a technology in this way, and it ensures people will be talking about them too. Apple sure know how to get people going!


----------



## Lazy Llama (Sep 1, 2010)

Photo I took outside the event. I'm currently sitting in a conference hall pretty much underneath the event. 




Apple launch event at Yerba Buena Center for Art, SF by Lazyllama, on Flickr


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

It's about that time...


----------



## Kanda (Sep 1, 2010)

Yup.. Twitter over capacity lol...


----------



## elbows (Sep 1, 2010)

The streaming video is fun so far, theres nothing I enjoy more than seeing audience members doing nothing.


----------



## elbows (Sep 1, 2010)

Have to say the video quality of the stream is rather great indeed, think Apple are showing off and perhaps testing some tech they would like to use, for example, for instant playing itunes video purchases.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

Kanda said:


> Yup.. Twitter over capacity lol...



Haha already?



elbows said:


> The streaming video is fun so far, theres nothing I enjoy more than seeing audience members doing nothing.



Where you viewing? Can't see it on either the uk or US apple sites...


----------



## Kanda (Sep 1, 2010)

Video to iPhone4 is stunning.


----------



## Kanda (Sep 1, 2010)

There's a link bottom left on www.apple.com


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

elbows said:


> Have to say the video quality of the stream is rather great indeed, think Apple are showing off and perhaps testing some tech they would like to use, for example, for instant playing itunes video purchases.


 
Apparently it's a stress test for a new datacentre...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

Kanda said:


> There's a link bottom left on www.apple.com


 
Yeah saw that, all I get is a message saying check back shortly...


----------



## elbows (Sep 1, 2010)

iOS 4.1 coming today,hope it runs better on the old iPhone than 4.0 did.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

Game centre at last...


----------



## elbows (Sep 1, 2010)

Oh its next week for iPhone 4.1, sure Jobs siad 'today' earlier but he does tend to misspeak several times during these events.


----------



## tarannau (Sep 1, 2010)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yeah saw that, all I get is a message saying check back shortly...


 
Really, it's actually quite impressively rock solid as streams go for me.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

tarannau said:


> Really, it's actually quite impressively rock solid as streams go for me.


 
Yup, not seeing anything....ah...think I've just sussed it.


----------



## tarannau (Sep 1, 2010)

Thank gawd, the Shuffle's returned back to pretty much its 2nd generation form factor.


----------



## tarannau (Sep 1, 2010)

And even the Nano looks like the form factor of the 2nd generation shuffle too, albeit with a multitouch mini screen.

Impressive technical feat I guess, but it's a little hard to envisage in use


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

Um Steve there's this thing called Spotify which is a social network for music, you didn't come up with this!


----------



## Lazy Llama (Sep 1, 2010)

Bye bye iPod classic. No update for spinning disk iPod


----------



## Vintage Paw (Sep 1, 2010)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Um Steve there's this thing called Spotify which is a social network for music, you didn't come up with this!


 
My thoughts exactly  Although, I use last.fm, but still. I doubt everyone's going to migrate. Way to keep it tied into itunes.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 1, 2010)

Ping looks neat, but it should have been a facebook app


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> Bye bye iPod classic. No update for spinning disk iPod



Yup, noticed that too. Wonder if they're going to discontinue it?



Vintage Paw said:


> My thoughts exactly  Although, I use last.fm, but still. I doubt everyone's going to migrate. Way to keep it tied into itunes.



Yeah...


----------



## Crispy (Sep 1, 2010)

Appletv is worthless if it doesn't play pirate formats. iTunes and iPod succeed because they play everyones dodgy copies. Apple should realise that people come for the free and stay for the paid, not the other way round.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

The lack of tv recording is a shame...


----------



## tarannau (Sep 1, 2010)

Yep, but depends how cheaply they pitch it I guess. Not convinced it's the solution for the living room really, more for the reasons that Crispy suggests than anything.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 1, 2010)

Also, i have a load of DVDs already and would like one box to do it all. The integration with computers and iDevices looks fantastic, but appletv is still too limited for me. Nobodys invented my ideal living room media device yet dammit!


----------



## tarannau (Sep 1, 2010)

Ok, that may do it. $99 is enough to make it virtually an impulse purchase, barely more than the old Airport Express. Even if it's only used as a bonus connector to show a bit of content from your iphone or stream music then it may tempt you into the odd movie purchase. Not quite as daft as I feared at first.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

Crispy said:


> Also, i have a load of DVDs already and would like one box to do it all. The integration with computers and iDevices looks fantastic, but appletv is still too limited for me. Nobodys invented my ideal living room media device yet dammit!


 
Yep me too. There's a panasonic box that comes close (blu ray, hd freeview plus, recording from tv etc) but still...


----------



## tarannau (Sep 1, 2010)

Crispy said:


> Also, i have a load of DVDs already and would like one box to do it all. The integration with computers and iDevices looks fantastic, but appletv is still too limited for me. Nobodys invented my ideal living room media device yet dammit!


 
Ach, I think you're more clued up than the average punter. This little thing could be a little beachhead for something more advanced. It's a reasonable stab at getting significant numbers of tvs connected up and easily usable for little more than the price of a router. It's definitely not the one box solution, but I suspect that they're going for Jobsian simplicity and the easier sell at first. I'm not convinced a more expensive, complicated box would have the mass market yet.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

Er Coldplay?


----------



## tarannau (Sep 1, 2010)

Cock


----------



## elbows (Sep 1, 2010)

Im pretty sure you will be able to play content with it that hasnt come from itunes, it just has to be converted into the right format first, which admittedly is an extra step many people wont want to bother with.

If more films & tv shows were made these days that I actually wanted to watch, then Id certainly get the Apple TV. I like the ability to stream content from an iPad (once iOS 4.2 is out), so maybe I will get one, but its not a must have for me at this stage.

The nano and the new ipod touch are rather nice, I have no need for them myself, the nano might be a good intro to touchscreens for my mum though.

Not only is the music social networking idea hampered by the inability to hear whole songs without buying them, but if its only focussed on what music people are buying, as opposed to what they are actually listening to from their entire library, then it can piss off.

Argh, Coldplay.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

I'm not going to get one but for some reason quite liked the idea of using the nano as a watch as well...bit Dick Tracy like that.


----------



## editor (Sep 1, 2010)

I think the nano is a really lovely looking gizmo - it's incredible that they've managed to pack in so much functionality, and a decent better life into such a small, stylish frame.

I stopped carrying separate music players back in the mini-disc days, and I suspect a lot of people now use their phones, but if I was after an MP3 player, this would be well worth looking at.


----------



## tarannau (Sep 1, 2010)

Hate to say it, but that new ipod Nano advert did quite the sales job on me, despite my earlier scepticism about usability. Want now.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Sep 1, 2010)

No update on the classic. FFS.

If it gets discontinued then its a sad day. Lovely as the ipod touch is (now especially that it has facetime and the higher res screen), there is simply no replacement for being able to carry your entire music collection round on a 160gig device. I love my classic and the only thing that could have replaced it would be an equal (or higher) capacity ipod touch. Looks like I'll be getting a minimal capacity touch to do all things non music then.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Sep 1, 2010)

Did the nano really lose video playing?

Screen shape doesn't look like it's vid-friendly


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

No idea. Itunes 10 is available: http://www.apple.com/uk/itunes/


----------



## Callum91 (Sep 1, 2010)

Why does the 64GB Touch have to cost so damn much!


----------



## Crispy (Sep 1, 2010)

tarannau said:


> Ach, I think you're more clued up than the average punter. This little thing could be a little beachhead for something more advanced. It's a reasonable stab at getting significant numbers of tvs connected up and easily usable for little more than the price of a router. It's definitely not the one box solution, but I suspect that they're going for Jobsian simplicity and the easier sell at first. I'm not convinced a more expensive, complicated box would have the mass market yet.


 But when 4 on demand, iplayer etc are already available on sky/virgin, what is the USP of appletv? It only does rentals and doesn't play stuff you already have. I watch my favourite movies over and over, why would i rent them? Fine, stream it from apples servers, but let me buy it


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 1, 2010)

Crispy said:


> But when 4 on demand, iplayer etc are already available on sky/virgin, what is the USP of appletv? It only does rentals and doesn't play stuff you already have. I watch my favourite movies over and over, why would i rent them? Fine, stream it from apples servers, but let me buy it


 
Good point about iPlayer, although you can get 4oD stuff via YouTube which apple tv has...


----------



## tarannau (Sep 1, 2010)

Crispy said:


> But when 4 on demand, iplayer etc are already available on sky/virgin, what is the USP of appletv? It only does rentals and doesn't play stuff you already have. I watch my favourite movies over and over, why would i rent them? Fine, stream it from apples servers, but let me buy it


 
You see I'm the opposite - I rarely watch films more than once every blue moon. The bonfire of the endlessly accumulated VCRs wasn't missed, and I'm not fussed about DVDs if I'm honest.

Sky's alrightish, but anyone who has to take the slow pain of Virgin's iplayer and other vod systems knows, there's still an opportunity for a more coherent, convenient alternative. Someone mentioned a Panasonic box earlier on - christ, if it's anything as awkward as my dad's super DVD/tuner recording box from them I don't hold out much hope

I'm hardly entirely won over - I've a lot of sympathy for your viewpoint and desire for an all in one box - but at $99 for a easy connection device that works pretty much out of the box? I can see it selling if I'm honest, if only for people to connect their iphones and other bits to their tv for slideshows and music conveniently. And from there better things may follow. It's an elegant looking, if utterly limited option


----------



## editor (Sep 1, 2010)

No one's nailed the integrated home TV/streaming/server/storage box thing yet, and I don't think Apple's offering brings us much closer, although it you like the way Apple does things, then it may appeal.

My mate in NYC had Apple TV and Apple gizmos all over his flat and it all integrated really well, albeit at a hefty price premium.


----------



## pk (Sep 1, 2010)

editor said:


> No one's nailed the integrated home TV/streaming/server/storage box thing yet, and I don't think Apple's offering brings us much closer, although it you like the way Apple does things, then it may appeal.
> 
> My mate in NYC had Apple TV and Apple gizmos all over his flat and it all integrated really well, albeit at a hefty price premium.


 
A big iMac with a solid connection handles that lot, surely?


----------



## editor (Sep 1, 2010)

pk said:


> A big iMac with a solid connection handles that lot, surely?


Not sure if I'd want an expensive "big iMac" in my living room, neither do I want a second screen cluttering up the place when I've already got a large flatscreen TV - besides, if I wanted to go the computer route, I could get an equally capable PC box for much less. 

What I'm on about is a dedicated media server/streamer/TV box/storage with an interface and remote designed for using on a TV screen.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 1, 2010)

editor said:


> No one's nailed the integrated home TV/streaming/server/storage box thing yet, and I don't think Apple's offering brings us much closer, although it you like the way Apple does things, then it may appeal.
> 
> My mate in NYC had Apple TV and Apple gizmos all over his flat and it all integrated really well, albeit at a hefty price premium.


 
No, I don't think anyone's nailed it either. Apple are making stabs but they've not got it right yet.

I actually think that the concept of a TV as an independent device to your computer will die before anyone gets it right. The TV will become an extra display for the purpose of watching films, and there'll be better connectivity with it - like if you have a music collection that's not on vinyl, you're more likely to have an amp connected to your computer nowadays than to an extra device. I don't know who bothers with a separate CD player these days.


----------



## Winot (Sep 1, 2010)

Crispy said:


> But when 4 on demand, iplayer etc are already available on sky/virgin, what is the USP of appletv? It only does rentals and doesn't play stuff you already have. I watch my favourite movies over and over, why would i rent them? Fine, stream it from apples servers, but let me buy it


 
You just need to install aTV Flash then it plays anything.

Edit - sorry - just seen update and realised what you are talking about.

Agreed - weird move on Apple's part.


----------



## editor (Sep 1, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> No, I don't think anyone's nailed it either. Apple are making stabs but they've not got it right yet.
> 
> I actually think that the concept of a TV as an independent device to your computer will die before anyone gets it right. The TV will become an extra display for the purpose of watching films, and there'll be better connectivity with it - like if you have a music collection that's not on vinyl, you're more likely to have an amp connected to your computer nowadays than to an extra device. I don't know who bothers with a separate CD player these days.


It seems daft as fuck that I've got to bring down my laptop to view photos on my flatscreen, fanny about with my Wii to get the iPlayer, plug in an MP3 player for tunes, and go upstairs to search my computer if I'm looking for a document or video clip or want to stream something off the web, and plug in a laptop to watch YouTube clips.

I want one box with a TV friendly media interface and to take care of all that stuff, and be able to view files, make notes, surf the web, play TV on demand, download films, stream videos, MP3 files, web content etc to any connected device in the house. And I don't want to pay through the nose for it, or be tied into one eco-system.


----------



## tarannau (Sep 1, 2010)

editor said:


> No one's nailed the integrated home TV/streaming/server/storage box thing yet, and I don't think Apple's offering brings us much closer, although it you like the way Apple does things, then it may appeal.
> 
> My mate in NYC had Apple TV and Apple gizmos all over his flat and it all integrated really well, albeit at a hefty price premium.


 
That's partly why I think this thing may sell. It's got that integration and ease of use, but at an affordable cost. For a fuckload of people with ipod, ipads and iphones already in the hand, $99 is not that much of a purchase. I'm always a little pleasantly surprised how many non-computer literate types have grown to love their ipods and storing a little music on their computers. If this thing gets a little coverage and a headstart, it's a convenient way for Barbara from the office to get her images and music from her iphone onto the big tv with minimal hassle. And then she might even rent a movie if it's easy enough.

I wouldn't claim it's anywhere near the box most on here would be hoping for, but I think it could sell and open up a few more doors for more advanced devices in time. It's a unusual price point for Apple really.


----------



## pk (Sep 1, 2010)

editor said:


> What I'm on about is a dedicated media server/streamer/TV box/storage with an interface and remote designed for using on a TV screen.


 
I'll be honest, I'm not sure what Apple TV can or can't do, but then I'm one of those people with 6 gizmos attached to my TV via a vision mixer.

The missus hates it, but I needs me my flashing lights and shit.


----------



## Sunray (Sep 1, 2010)

editor said:


> It seems daft as fuck that I've got to bring down my laptop to view photos on my flatscreen, fanny about with my Wii to get the iPlayer, plug in an MP3 player for tunes, and go upstairs to search my computer if I'm looking for a document or video clip or want to stream something off the web, and plug in a laptop to watch YouTube clips.
> 
> I want one box with a TV friendly media interface and to take care of all that stuff, and be able to view files, make notes, surf the web, play TV on demand, download films, stream videos, MP3 files, web content etc to any connected device in the house. And I don't want to pay through the nose for it, or be tied into one eco-system.


 
Make notes? Not sure I'd want to do that on my TV.

That Apple TV will get  hacked, it already plays stuff off your PC like photos and music.  The old one did just about any format.  I can see this being the one that gets battered. $99 for a quality device is peanuts.  

I'm going to get one when it arrives here and then wait till someone hacks it so I can play what ever I want so I can finally retire my XBox, great as it is, it could be quieter.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 1, 2010)

As a commenter on Ars just said, the missing piece of the puzzle is an itunes server box


----------



## Lazy Llama (Sep 1, 2010)

The media streamer as a discrete device will disappear, subsumed by TVs with built-in media players. 
You can already buy TVs with YouTube, iplayer, lovefilm, facebook, twitter and a DNLA client built in, as well as WiFi and Ethernet capability. 

At least one TV uses Android and many more will use ChromeOS to handle GoogleTV as well.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 2, 2010)

Seems to me Apple are doing their usual 'release the product in it's simplest form then add to it over the years' as it gains market share. 

Talking about what it doesn't do seems fairly pointless until it's 2 or 3 generation thinking about it...


----------



## editor (Sep 2, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> The media streamer as a discrete device will disappear, subsumed by TVs with built-in media players.
> You can already buy TVs with YouTube, iplayer, lovefilm, facebook, twitter and a DNLA client built in, as well as WiFi and Ethernet capability.
> 
> At least one TV uses Android and many more will use ChromeOS to handle GoogleTV as well.


I went to a press event recently and saw this _incredible_ wafer thin LCD monster TV that had wi-fi and a BBC iPlayer built in It could play back video and music from any USB attached device and - best of all - if you wanted to go to the loo mid way through a match, you could carry on watching the show *on the remote* (or browse other channels/surf etc)!

Massive WANT erupted around the room.


----------



## Kanda (Sep 2, 2010)

I go to the loo and carry on watching Sky sports or whatever else on my iPhone 

Which I use as a remote for Apple TV and to program my Sky+


----------



## Structaural (Sep 2, 2010)

Sunray said:


> Make notes? Not sure I'd want to do that on my TV.
> 
> That Apple TV will get  hacked, it already plays stuff off your PC like photos and music.  The old one did just about any format.  I can see this being the one that gets battered. $99 for a quality device is peanuts.
> 
> I'm going to get one when it arrives here and then wait till someone hacks it so I can play what ever I want so I can finally retire my XBox, great as it is, it could be quieter.


 
They'll be a jailbreak within a couple of weeks no doubt, then I'll buy one - it'll complement my media box, I've run out of HDMI inputs though. Shame they don't allow a hard drive to be connected - it's got a microUSB port.


----------



## gabi (Sep 2, 2010)

So, what happened yesterday in terms of the iPod (not interested in apple tv)

Is there a new version coming out with video skype capabilities?


----------



## Kanda (Sep 2, 2010)

gabi said:


> So, what happened yesterday in terms of the iPod (not interested in apple tv)
> 
> Is there a new version coming out with video skype capabilities?


 
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/09/01/apple-announces-new-ipod-models/


----------



## gabi (Sep 2, 2010)

What's 'facetime'? Is this a shit apple version of skype?


----------



## Kanda (Sep 2, 2010)

Video Calling. 

Google not working where you are???


----------



## gabi (Sep 2, 2010)

I get more succinct answers here


----------



## Kanda (Sep 2, 2010)

Facetime works on all iOS devices over WiFi... with it now on most iPods and all iPhones, that's pretty impressive covereage....


----------



## gabi (Sep 2, 2010)

Can I use it to call someone on a PC in NZ?


----------



## Crispy (Sep 2, 2010)

It's not shit, but yes it's apple's version. The spec is open and it's much better at traversing NAT - should work more reliably than SIP-based video.
Here's some technical details: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/08/inside_iphone_4_facetime_video_calling.html

For now it's iDevices only, but Pc and windows clients can't be far away.

Alternatively, rage at Skype for not updating their iphone app with video calls


----------



## Kanda (Sep 2, 2010)

gabi said:


> Can I use it to call someone on a PC in NZ?


 
No, you can use it to call other iOS devices, like I just bloody said!! 

If you want to call a PC, use Skype.


----------



## Structaural (Sep 2, 2010)

I don't know one person I can 'Facetime', not even my missus on her macbook


----------



## gabi (Sep 2, 2010)

Ok, thanks kanda and crispy... that was the only reason i was gonna upgrade the iPod (ive been without skyping ability since my iMac exploded and cant afford to buy a new one of those).

I'll wait till skype sort their act out.


----------



## gabi (Sep 2, 2010)

Has anyone tried this:

http://www.fring.com/blog/?p=1791



> Right now iPhone and iPod touch users can receive and make fring and Skype video calls entirely over Internet connection (for free!) and see the person on the other end. When a front camera is placed on these, we’ll have two-way video calls available here too just as we do on all the supported Nokia devices



If so, is it any good?


----------



## stupid dogbot (Sep 2, 2010)

gabi said:


> What's 'facetime'? Is this a shit apple version of skype?


 
Certainly not shit.


----------



## editor (Sep 2, 2010)

gabi said:


> Has anyone tried this:
> 
> http://www.fring.com/blog/?p=1791
> 
> If so, is it any good?


This reviewer was distinctly unimpressed:



> *Pros*
> Aggregates Facebook and Twitter updates, IM chats and calls. Calls work over 3G or Wi-Fi. Stays resident in the background with iOS 4.
> 
> *Cons*
> ...


----------



## skyscraper101 (Sep 2, 2010)

I think I will get an ipod touch for me and the gf (if she's lucky), and it will def get used for facetime as she's abroad a lot and skyping on the laptops is a pain in the hole compared to the convenience of a hand held device. The camera and mic is definitely what the original iPod touch has been missing all this time. If only it could store 160gigs (at least) of data, it would be the ultimate phone/ipod/voip client/game device all rolled into one. With the pitiful storage of only 64gig max I will continue to have to carry my music round on a seperate ipod classic.

Anyhow, it's no big deal because I have an app on my Nokia E71 which turns it into a mobile wifi hotspot. So, theoretically I could facetime anywhere on the move now.


----------



## gabi (Sep 2, 2010)

skyscraper101 said:


> I think I will get an ipod touch for me and the gf (if she's lucky), and it will def get used for facetime as she's abroad a lot and skyping on the laptops is a pain in the hole compared to the convenience of a hand held device. The camera and mic is definitely what the original iPod touch has been missing all this time. If only it could store 160gigs (at least) of data, it would be the ultimate phone/ipod/voip client/game device all rolled into one. With the pitiful storage of only 64gig max I will continue to have to carry my music round on a seperate ipod classic.
> 
> Anyhow, it's no big deal because I have an app on my Nokia E71 which turns it into a mobile wifi hotspot. So, theoretically I could facetime anywhere on the move now.



Yeh, but only to others on facetime...

Which is kinda shit. And yet another example of Apple making Microsoft looking positively linux-spirited in comparison.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 2, 2010)

Facetime is based on existing open standards and Apple have said they are going to release the spec and make it a proper international standard for video calls.


----------



## gabi (Sep 2, 2010)

Fair enough.

Bit sus about the reasons Skype's not put anything out for the iPhone/touch yet tho. Given they're currently the standard for vid chat. This reminds me of the Internet explorer demolition of netscape back in the day.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 2, 2010)

Because Skype are really lame with their software recently


----------



## gabi (Sep 2, 2010)

They've got Android sorted, not apple tho for some reason..

http://www.slashgear.com/skype-android-app-with-video-chat-due-in-2010-2887399/


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## Crispy (Sep 2, 2010)

Skype video came to iphone then went away again. not sure why


----------



## Kanda (Sep 2, 2010)

I think it was because they only allowed it over WiFi. Which is networks fault really, not Apples.


----------



## gabi (Sep 2, 2010)

Fishy. Are Apple not potentially risking anti-competitive lawsuits here? MS got slammed for packaging Internet Explorer with windows (iirc?)..

What's the difference here? (if something has gone on behind the scenes to prevent skype from using vid chat on their products).


----------



## magneze (Sep 2, 2010)

Apple aren't as dominant in mobiles as MS were on the desktop. Not by a very very long way.


----------



## Kanda (Sep 2, 2010)

gabi said:


> Fishy. Are Apple not potentially risking anti-competitive lawsuits here? MS got slammed for packaging Internet Explorer with windows (iirc?)..
> 
> What's the difference here? (if something has gone on behind the scenes to prevent skype from using vid chat on their products).


 
There is no difference. Facetime only works on WiFi too.... Skype got pissed off in the early days and pulled it I think.


----------



## elbows (Sep 2, 2010)

I like the new view in iTunes 10.

Just trying ping. Complaint number one: During profile creation, choosing genres you like, only lets you choose a maximum of 3!


----------



## Lazy Llama (Sep 2, 2010)

Country, Western and Jazz?


----------



## stupid dogbot (Sep 2, 2010)

And the recommendations _fucking suck_. You think I should follow Dave fucking Matthews? I think not.


----------



## editor (Sep 2, 2010)

Crispy said:


> Skype video came to iphone then went away again. not sure why


 They're not in the greatest position with Apple: 


> "For example," Skype says in the SEC filing, "although our application for the Apple iPad, iPhone and iTouch is currently enabled to make voice communications over 3G networks, Apple or its carrier partners may choose to alter the terms of inclusion in its application store, effectively withdrawing this functionality at any time or develop competing applications, such as Apple Face Time, that may better integrate with Apple's devices."
> 
> http://www.businessweek.com/idg/201...out-iphone-attracting-business-customers.html


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## elbows (Sep 2, 2010)

Ping sucks a massive corporate cock in every way we might expect, from what Ive seen of it so far. I suspect part of the problem is how new it is and how few notable people there are to follow, but Ive also been annoyed by many other aspects of it during my brief experience so far. When I looked at my own profile page, it said I didnt have permission to see my own recent activity, lol.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 2, 2010)

Good analysis of the tv box from ars
http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2010/09/apples-trouble-with-tv.ars
Short version: it only adds another box to your cable monster under your tv. The winning product can't be another narrow content channel, it must be omnivorous - tie up all the pipes in one interface. And make that completely simple.


----------



## Sunray (Sep 3, 2010)

elbows said:


> I like the new view in iTunes 10.
> 
> Just trying ping. Complaint number one: During profile creation, choosing genres you like, only lets you choose a maximum of 3!


 
This is a decision of epic fail proportions. Three from a very limited selection in the 1st place.  

I was in the process of enabling it and once you clicked the third it greys the rest out, my thought was a real 'wtf' and clicked cancel, instantly forgotten together with most of the functionality of iTunes.  

I'm curious how they plan to use the huge data centre they are building at the moment.   Some are saying a Spotify alternative.  I'll stick to spotify.


----------



## Structaural (Sep 3, 2010)

As iTunes won't allow non-localised language versions of their store and Ping, I have to use it all in Dutch, which I can get by in, but I'd prefer English. Like Facebook, ebay, paypal, my dutch bank allow but Apple don't.


----------



## Structaural (Sep 3, 2010)

Crispy said:


> Good analysis of the tv box from ars
> http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2010/09/apples-trouble-with-tv.ars
> Short version: it only adds another box to your cable monster under your tv. The winning product can't be another narrow content channel, it must be omnivorous - tie up all the pipes in one interface. And make that completely simple.


 
Good article. A little hardware box that accepts AirVideo would be a good solution. I've a PS3 media server but it doesn't work as well as AirVideo on my iPhone 4 or, I'd imagine, the iPad.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Sep 3, 2010)

Crispy said:


> Good analysis of the tv box from ars
> http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2010/09/apples-trouble-with-tv.ars
> Short version: it only adds another box to your cable monster under your tv. The winning product can't be another narrow content channel, it must be omnivorous - tie up all the pipes in one interface. And make that completely simple.


 
Sounds like the sort of product Apple _could_ do brilliantly, except they never will because of their "our way or no way" control freak approach.


----------



## paolo (Sep 3, 2010)

Sunray said:


> This is a decision of epic fail proportions. Three from a very limited selection in the 1st place.
> 
> I was in the process of enabling it and once you clicked the third it greys the rest out, my thought was a real 'wtf' and clicked cancel, instantly forgotten together with most of the functionality of iTunes.
> 
> I'm curious how they plan to use the huge data centre they are building at the moment.   Some are saying a Spotify alternative.  I'll stick to spotify.


 
I know what I'd like them to do. A proper cloud solution. I loathe syncing, and now I've got a few Apple devices, it's even more tedious. Whereas for my contacts, calendar and mail, it's all transparent - via Exchange protocol into Google.

Imagine if, for a subscription, you could have all your 'independtly sourced' stuff (music, video, photos & other docs) auto synced up to the cloud, and then accessible / streamable from anywhere. No requirement that they be iTunes purchases. If that happened, I'd buy the new AppleTV in an instant.

Cheap as disks are, the whole idea of having to think about and manage a dedicated home media server is both complicated and tedious.

Whether this universal cloud thing will happen soon I don't know, but I was encouraged that Jobs said, when talking about user opinions relating to AppleTV..."users hate Syncing". He must know that isn't limited to AppleTV. And the more someone buys into the Apple utopia, the worse the syncing overhead becomes. It's an inverse payback. Sort it out Apple.

(e2a: oh and Ping... WTF is the genre 'Holiday' ???)


----------



## elbows (Sep 3, 2010)

paolo999 said:


> (e2a: oh and Ping... WTF is the genre 'Holiday' ???)


 
Bad Christmas songs I would guess.

As for the cloud stuff, there are plenty of rumours about that kind of thing, going back quite a while, but I think it will happen slowly, if at all. Jobs going on about people not liking syncing is the justification for not having storage built into the Apple TV anymore. But apart from the ability to stream video etc from your computer or iPad, all we are really dealing with at the moment is to have rented tv & movies streamed/progressive downloaded to the Apple TV.


----------



## sim667 (Sep 3, 2010)

I dont get whats so special about this apple tv, ive been able to stream music, photos vid to my tv from my mac pro for years just using my xbox.

Ping is bollocks..... ive got a ping account now, but ill stick with spotify.


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## paolo (Sep 3, 2010)

sim667 said:


> I dont get whats so special about this apple tv, ive been able to stream music, photos vid to my tv from my mac pro for years just using my xbox.
> .


 
xbox cost $99 ? Or considerably more?

The new AppleTV is a streamer. The correct comparison would be against another streamer.


----------



## Structaural (Sep 3, 2010)

xbox sounds like an aeroplane taking off too

This is the main contender against the iTV I reckon, extra 50 dollars but you can connect a harddrive/computer/NAS, plays any format and goes up to 1080p (though no Apple store): http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=832


----------



## stupid dogbot (Sep 3, 2010)

Structaural said:


> xbox sounds like an aeroplane taking off too



PS3 doesn't.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Sep 3, 2010)

Structaural said:


> xbox sounds like an aeroplane taking off too[/url]



Not the new re-designd ones that you can get for £130.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Sep 3, 2010)

mwgdrwg said:


> Not the new re-designd ones that you can get for £130.


 
Mine doesn't either. I got it just over a year ago. One of the jasper chips.


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## sim667 (Sep 3, 2010)

Bout £150, and it does stream, infact as you can play games its got more functionality

you can also watch dvd's on it.

My xbox doesnt sound like a plane taking off either.....


----------



## skyscraper101 (Sep 3, 2010)

Updated to iTunes 10 last night. Boy what a bloatware that is. Absolute shite, it took a whole evening just to synch the 130gigs of music on there. Horribly slow software.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 3, 2010)

Er, sync it with what? You didn't delete the old one first or something did you?


----------



## skyscraper101 (Sep 3, 2010)

Sorry it was 'updating the library' whatever that means. I didn't add anything new to it, but it took about 10 hours to complete.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Sep 3, 2010)

Wow, my library's bigger than that and it took about 2 minutes.


----------



## tarannau (Sep 3, 2010)

Yep, you should buy a better computer, or cut your music collection down to suit your underpowered unit.

Took a few mins for me too


----------



## skyscraper101 (Sep 3, 2010)

What the hell was it doing then? OK I have an external hard drive for all my music but still. All night?!

BTW the machine is a 2.2Ghz pentium macbook with 4gigs of RAM. Should be more than adequate.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 3, 2010)

I didn't notice it doing anything tbh. I was too busy checking whether Ping was any good. Which didn't take long.


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## maldwyn (Sep 3, 2010)

I can't even be arsed to click on ping - do they think we're stupid and can't see a marketing trick a mile off?


----------



## stupid dogbot (Sep 3, 2010)

skyscraper101 said:


> What the hell was it doing then? OK I have an external hard drive for all my music but still. All night?!
> 
> BTW the machine is a 2.2Ghz pentium macbook with 4gigs of RAM. Should be more than adequate.



Agreed. Perhaps it's not done it for a while?

Mine's a 2.5GHz DC MBP, 4GB RAM and like I said, 160GB music library took about 2 minutes. Odd.

Files aren't on a network drive, are they?


----------



## skyscraper101 (Sep 3, 2010)

stupid dogbot said:


> Files aren't on a network drive, are they?



No just a regular USB drive. I'm actually getting very annoyed with the speed of iTunes generally off of a USB powered drive. Constant spinny beach ball, no instant start time, very annoying if you occasionally use it for your DJ set. Looks like I'll have to upgrade to a bigger internal drive.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 3, 2010)

I run my itunes off a USB drive all the time, have done for years, and I've never had a problem. Your drive could be knackered.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 3, 2010)

Alternatively, turning off "put drives to sleep when possible" in power saving can help with startup times, if that is on. But that wouldn't explain poor speeds when accessing files after you've woken the drive up.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Sep 3, 2010)

Then its all very odd. Because the drive works fine. It's got movies, photos and everything on it and they all access fine.

In fact, when I'm DJing and I need to play a tune from the iTunes library, I fire up iTunes, locate the track, the hit cmnd+r to reveal the file and then open up seperately in VLC to play it - then it works instantaneously which only serves to further my opinion that iTunes is horribly bloated to the point where it cannot run properly without going all spinny beach ball just when I need it to work. VLC in comparison is lightening quick running files from the same drive.


----------



## editor (Sep 3, 2010)

maldwyn said:


> I can't even be arsed to click on ping - do they think we're stupid and can't see a marketing trick a mile off?


 It's been a disaster: 


> Apple's Ping "drowning in scams and spams"
> 
> Security firm Sophos has slammed Apple for failing to secure its new Ping social network, claiming the service is sinking in “scams and spams”.
> 
> ...


----------



## Structaural (Sep 3, 2010)

mwgdrwg said:


> Not the new re-designd ones that you can get for £130.


 
I stand corrected, sounds like the cheapest and best solution if they're that cheap.


----------



## elbows (Sep 3, 2010)

lol yeah the first thing I noticed when I was browsing the lame Ping service was the amount of spam already appearing in comments.

Apple have yet to demonstrate to me that they have any clue at all about the social side of the internet. I expect them to have compromised services in this space due to their desire to focus on the commercial, market & marketing aspects only, but they are also doing quite a poor job when it comes to the design and engineering of these things.

i hope the opensource and decentralised social networking stuff thats coming soon gets somewhere because I dont see any corporations doing this stuff without fucking us in one or more ways.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Sep 4, 2010)

Just got iTunes 10 but can't see my music, just some screens telling me to watch tutorials. How doI get rid of these screens?


----------



## mwgdrwg (Sep 6, 2010)

I had to re-add my music, which I keep on an external drive. Annoyingly lost my playlists and podcast subscriptions.


----------



## Kanda (Sep 6, 2010)

mwgdrwg said:


> I had to re-add my music, which I keep on an external drive. Annoyingly lost my playlists and podcast subscriptions.


 
You can recover these by finding the database file. Plenty of info on Apple support forums.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Sep 6, 2010)

I've switched off ping. I was going to keep it on, to see how it developed over time, but it forces me to use my real name, and that can fuck the fuck right off. Originally I changed the nickname, but when I bought something using my apple id it changed it back again to my billing name. They've got no fucking clue.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 6, 2010)

Haven't even bothered to switch it on. Not really interested in it...2010 seems to be a year where the shine came off Apple...


----------



## Vintage Paw (Sep 6, 2010)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Haven't even bothered to switch it on. Not really interested in it...2010 seems to be a year where the shine came off Apple...


 
World's a'changing, and I'm not sure they're changing quick enough with it. Sure, they've instigated some of the change (the popularity of the iphone has seen that market boom more than it was doing before hand, when the 'smart phone' was seen as more of a niche product than it is now - it would probably have moved that way anyway, but slower), but in a market where cheap and functional is popular (netbooks), their high end goods need to be truly high end, and there seem to be nothing but quibbles about them (the antennae, the yellow imac screens, ping, flash, and so on). Coupled with their complete aversion to venturing into the cheap and functional market (which I'm sure they could cater for, with some elegant compromises and interesting solutions), it's a bit of a dodgy old time for them. If you took away their iphone sales I wonder what would be left.


----------



## elbows (Sep 6, 2010)

The shine has come off their PR somewhat this year, but really, its not a dodgy old time for them. They still sold a shitload of iphone 4's and the ipad has been quite a success. Their computer sales are doing fine too, not been harmed by the economic woe in a way we may have thought likely, not yet anyway.

Besides, its not like they always made perfect hardware and software and suddenly its all gone wrong. They have made a fair amount of crap throughout their existence.


----------



## Vintage Paw (Sep 6, 2010)

elbows said:


> The shine has come off their PR somewhat this year, but really, its not a dodgy old time for them. They still sold a shitload of iphone 4's and the ipad has been quite a success. Their computer sales are doing fine too, not been harmed by the economic woe in a way we may have thought likely, not yet anyway.
> 
> Besides, its not like they always made perfect hardware and software and suddenly its all gone wrong. They have made a fair amount of crap throughout their existence.


 
Perhaps. Perhaps it's just that the forever loyal are being a bit more vocal about their dismay with recent things. Who knows? It's just, a company that prides itself on being at the shiny high end of the market, with products that 'just work', and gets nothing but praise even from tech insiders, is suddenly getting a lot of bad press all at once. It won't see them go down the pan, but it's also not helping them maintain the 'untouchable' veneer they've had for so long. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm an apple fan. 2 iphones, 3 ipods, 2 imacs, 1 macbook <-- that's over the last 4 years. Just making an observation.


----------



## Crispy (Oct 13, 2010)

October 20th media event. OSX 10.7 Lion then.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Oct 13, 2010)

Typical.


----------



## Crispy (Oct 13, 2010)

I make it 8 more single-word cat species left before they run out at "OSX 10.15 Kodkod" in 2022 or thereabouts.




			
				Wild Cat Species said:
			
		

> African Golden Cat
> Asian Golden Cat
> Andean Mtn Cat
> Bay Cat
> ...


----------



## stupid dogbot (Oct 13, 2010)

Cats are so last year.

It's time for dogs.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Oct 13, 2010)

Also, they better give me a free upgrade if they do release a new OS.


----------



## editor (Oct 13, 2010)

I'd probably switch to a Mac if the next OS was called Rusty-Spotted Cat.


----------



## editor (Oct 13, 2010)

I'd probably switch to a Mac if the next OS was called Rusty-Spotted Cat.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Oct 13, 2010)

Crispy said:


> October 20th media event. OSX 10.7 Lion then.


 
"Come see the release of Apple's new pussy..."


----------



## maldwyn (Oct 13, 2010)

will it be another £25 update and will iWork get a make over?


----------



## Crispy (Oct 13, 2010)

iwork '11 has had a leaked ad, so expect that to be revealed. I doubt it'll be another £25 update - that was special rate for snow leopard.
if your conscience will bear it, there is no copy protection or validation in OSX, so a pirate copy is as good as the real thing


----------



## stupid dogbot (Oct 14, 2010)

I certainly won't be paying for a copy - not three weeks after I bought a new machine.


----------



## elbows (Oct 14, 2010)

maldwyn said:


> will it be another £25 update and will iWork get a make over?


 
I forget what the iWork release cycles are like.

As for the price of the next OS X, it depends what they have changed - Snow Leopard was considered a relatively minor update in terms of brand new features, hence the low price.


----------



## Crispy (Oct 14, 2010)

stupid dogbot said:


> I certainly won't be paying for a copy - not three weeks after I bought a new machine.


 
It's not coming out next week, there haven't been any previews or anything yet.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Oct 14, 2010)

Crispy said:


> It's not coming out next week, there haven't been any previews or anything yet.


 
Even so. If they think they're getting any more money out of me for another _couple of years_, they're mistaken.


----------



## elbows (Oct 14, 2010)

The release schedule is intreguing, if memory serves me correctly they normally preview it at a dev conference long before release, but that didnt happen this year. But it would be odd for them to do a press conference on it if its going to be 6 months or more away, so maybe it will come out either before Christmas or some time in Q1 2011.


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## elbows (Oct 14, 2010)

stupid dogbot said:


> Even so. If they think they're getting any more money out of me for another _couple of years_, they're mistaken.


 
Depends whats new really doesnt it? Might be worth it, although personally Im not sure what important stuff is left to add to OS's these days, I guess we will find out.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Oct 14, 2010)

elbows said:


> Depends whats new really doesnt it?



To you, maybe.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Oct 14, 2010)

Unless this is number 11 I aint paying. Only bought the bloody MacBook Pro back in July...


----------



## cybertect (Oct 14, 2010)

elbows said:


> The release schedule is intreguing, if memory serves me correctly they normally preview it at a dev conference long before release, but that didnt happen this year.


 
Apparently they'd planned to show a preview of 10.7 at the WWDC, but instead had to throw the programmers at getting iOS 4.0 out the door for the launch of the iPhone 4.


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## editor (Oct 15, 2010)

No sex and drugs for bands signing up to the Ping service.
http://www.wirefresh.com/apple-hates-ian-dury-and-wants-us-to-forget-about-the-sex-and-drugs/


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## stupid dogbot (Oct 15, 2010)

editor said:


> No sex and drugs for bands signing up to the Ping service.
> http://www.wirefresh.com/apple-hates-ian-dury-and-wants-us-to-forget-about-the-sex-and-drugs/


 
Tbh, from what I've seen most of the bands on the Ping service are fucking shite anyway.


----------



## Crispy (Oct 15, 2010)

Like Ping wasn't dead in the water already, they felt the need to shoot a fwe more bullets into the corpse


----------



## editor (Oct 15, 2010)

Crispy said:


> Like Ping wasn't dead in the water already, they felt the need to shoot a fwe more bullets into the corpse


----------



## skyscraper101 (Oct 15, 2010)

@ myself for bothering to do a ping profile on the first day it was launched when I downloaded iTunes again (for the nth time). I should've foresaw its rather crap potential and stayed well away, like I did with google buzz.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Oct 16, 2010)

Crispy said:


> Like Ping wasn't dead in the water already, they felt the need to shoot a fwe more bullets into the corpse


 
This /\/\/\


----------



## Sunray (Oct 16, 2010)

I wonder how much that failure cost them?


----------



## paolo (Oct 16, 2010)

Sunray said:


> I wonder how much that failure cost them?


 
Probably not a lot in the grand scheme of things. It's not like they burnt many marketing dollars on it.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 16, 2010)

paolo999 said:


> Probably not a lot in the grand scheme of things. It's not like they burnt many marketing dollars on it.


 
They don't seem to have burned many planning or development dollars on it either.

Apple basically suck at anything web- or community-based to be honest. They do well in lots of areas but that is not one of them. They can't even get bloody iDisks right after years and years and many much better examples e.g. Dropbox. When _Microsoft_ have a better net service you need to worry.

The MobileMe website and the web tools there are extremely slick, but that's because it was basically a software engineering project, and we know they can do _that_.


----------



## sim667 (Oct 18, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They don't seem to have burned many planning or development dollars on it either.
> 
> Apple basically suck at anything web- or community-based to be honest. They do well in lots of areas but that is not one of them. They can't even get bloody iDisks right after years and years and many much better examples e.g. Dropbox. When _Microsoft_ have a better net service you need to worry.
> 
> The MobileMe website and the web tools there are extremely slick, but that's because it was basically a software engineering project, and we know they can do _that_.


 
My idisk works fine


----------



## Crispy (Oct 18, 2010)

sim667 said:


> My idisk works fine


 
Yeah and you pay 100/year for it, sucker!


----------



## tarannau (Oct 18, 2010)

100 what. It's about £59 innit? I still pay the fee like a sucker too tbh, but for the convenience and the email address mainly. Slightly annoyed that I got into the routine, but it's bearable.

iDisk is still pretty slow though.


----------



## sim667 (Oct 19, 2010)

Crispy said:


> Yeah and you pay 100/year for it, sucker!


 
No I dont, check your facts.


----------



## Crispy (Oct 19, 2010)

sorry, that's dollars  my mistake

although it is a bunch of services you can get for free elsewhere - eg Gmail, dropbox.
find my iphone is useful though


----------



## sim667 (Oct 19, 2010)

Crispy said:


> sorry, that's dollars  my mistake
> 
> although it is a bunch of services you can get for free elsewhere - eg Gmail, dropbox.
> find my iphone is useful though


 
Its true, but i have all three, gmail, googlemail, and mobileme. I can safely say that googlemail and gmail push isnt a patch on the mobileme push. My idisk works perfectly and so does my contact syncing. Find my iphone has been handy on a few occasions too..... 

I normally get mine for £35-£40 off ebay, I dont really have any qualms with paying £3-£4 a month for a really good unified service.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2010)

So far its mostly been about iLife, with some interesting additions to iPhoto, iMovie & Garage band.

Now we are on to a sneak peak at some OS X Lion stuff. Jobs is talking about things that worked well on iOS and bringing some of them back to the Mac....

Multitouch gestures.
App Store!
Automatic saving when app quits, fullscreen mode.

Its stil in progress so I will post my thoughts later.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2010)

Some of the fullscreen/launchpad/mission control stuff looks nice, hardly essential must-have stuff though, but will bring some good aspects from the Ipad to the desktop. Of most use if you like using multi-touch gestures really, something I do like doing with trackpad but boy do I not like the multitouch mouse - bloke doing the sneak peak got into a real mess trying to do gestures on it.

Bringing the App Store to the desktop has some clear downsides, although it will make it a fair bit more convenient for some users to get stuff, update stuff etc. 

They are aiming to get Lion out next Summer. They want to make money from App Store sooner than that so they are bringing App Store out for Snow Leopard within 90 days.

Facetime is coming to the Mac as of today, with a beta release. No interest in this myself.

Now moving on to some new hardware, again returning to the 'bringing stuff back from the iPad'.


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 20, 2010)

App Store for the fucking desktop. Fuck's sake.


----------



## paolo (Oct 20, 2010)

The existing app store in iTunes, so the new bits are... ???

They'll have desktop software available?

In the iTunes UI / New App / Both?

(Sorry, not watching, hence dumb questions)


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## elbows (Oct 20, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> App Store for the fucking desktop. Fuck's sake.


 
I know, it was bound to happen though given what a money maker & hardware sales driver the App Store has been for them on other platforms.

The new hardware turns out to be the rumoured macbook air updates: no optical drive, solid state (flash) drive instead of hard drive, 11.something inch version as well as the larger 13.something inch screen, good battery life. Ive no interest in these products myself.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2010)

paolo999 said:


> The existing app store in iTunes, so the new bits are... ???
> 
> They'll have desktop software available?
> 
> ...


 
Yes desktop software, although it will be interesting to see how many devs actually go for this. Will the loss of share of the revenue be made up for by the marketing/potentially greater market that the App Store offers.

Think its a separate App Store program, not iTunes.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2010)

The win for users with the App Store is if you have quite a few machines - much like the policy with iphones & ipad apps, you will be able to install the app on multiple machines. Sounds like the small print will mean this is for personal use only, not business, any perhaps there is some sort of opt-out for certain kinds of software for all I know, wasnt mentioned today and in any case we will perhaps not see a lot of more expensive pro apps in the store anyway.


----------



## paolo (Oct 20, 2010)

elbows said:


> Yes desktop software, although it will be interesting to see how many devs actually go for this. Will the loss of share of the revenue be made up for by the marketing/potentially greater market that the App Store offers.
> 
> Think its a separate App Store program, not iTunes.



The existing app store has rights-management built in (arguably just as a product of iOS lockdown).

I wonder if this will implement that?

And equally, what commission one normally pays by going with other online stores?


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2010)

paolo999 said:


> And equally, what commission one normally pays by going with other online stores?


 
Not sure but pretty sure it isnt anything like the 30% that Apple get from App Store sales.

Though again, devs & publishers will have to weigh up these losses versus the potential gains - the extreme ease of purchasing once you have an itunes/app store account likely drives higher sales. Its a bit early to tell but I assume this will end up being an attractive proposition for people that sell software thats pretty cheaply priced.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 20, 2010)

elbows said:


> The win for users with the App Store is if you have quite a few machines - much like the policy with iphones & ipad apps, you will be able to install the app on multiple machines.


 
I do that with all the software I already have. Some do have seat rather than personal licences, but I never buy seat licences.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 20, 2010)

It's the details that will count here. An app distribution and update system, open to all, is one thing. Linux has that after all. After that, though, different aspects can degrade it and the platform as a whole, because it will quickly become the central expected distribution channel for Mac software and software *not* on it will have a lot of trouble.

It's a bad thing if it has the decency filters that I expect it would have. It's a bad thing if updates take the absolutely stupid amount of time they currently take in the App Store to get approved - the system is almost entirely broken. It's a *distinctly* bad thing if approved apps have some sort of privileged treatment by the OS, or there is otherwise some difference between standard apps and App Store apps.

Put it this way - I've been waiting for weeks or months for approval and update for an iPad code editing app (Gusto) that needs an update to use SFTP, because SFTP is one of those "military grade encryption" things and apparently needs executive checking and approval by Apple. I never, ever want to see that sort of thing on my desktop.


----------



## paolo (Oct 20, 2010)

There's certainly *alot* of implications if this gets a grip, and one day Microsoft follow suit on Windows.

Fuck loads of implications.

I can see, in five years time (possibly five years too late) it'll attract government intervention (if it gets a grip). Similar vibes to the browser thing, which in comparison was a so-what episode by the time things kicked off.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 20, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> App Store for the fucking desktop. Fuck's sake.



Hardly a surprise though, it totally fits with the apple control freak approach.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 20, 2010)




----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I do that with all the software I already have. Some do have seat rather than personal licences, but I never buy seat licences.


 
Yeah Im sure its quite widely done but even so this will make some difference to some people, Im not trying to say its a real big deal.

The downsides to the App Store are many, Im too tired to discuss them now and it looks like people are already doing a good job of covering this stuff.The 'decency' and 'dont ridicule public figures' stuff bothers me the most personally, but thats not the only thing that does.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 20, 2010)

Why the rolleyes? Are you honestly a) surprised by the concept of an app store for the desktop, and b) saying that Apple aren't control freaks?


----------



## maldwyn (Oct 20, 2010)

There's room for some crossover but will it mean the iWorks stuff becomes down-loadable individual apps - like the ipad? 'Mission control' sounds idiotic and facetime can fuck the fuck off.

I'll probably get a copy of iLife11.

Isn't there a new mac Office release next week?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Oct 20, 2010)

That 11" MacBook Air looks pretty sweet...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 20, 2010)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Why the rolleyes? Are you honestly a) surprised by the concept of an app store for the desktop, and b) saying that Apple aren't control freaks?


 
"Apple are control freaks" is just lazy fandroid crap. It's a specific business move with an obvious progression behind it, it's not because "Apple" want to take over the world and stamp on everyone's face with a boot forever.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Oct 20, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> "Apple are control freaks" is just lazy fandroid crap. It's a specific business move with an obvious progression behind it, it's not because "Apple" want to take over the world and stamp on everyone's face with a boot forever.


 
Heh so rare do you read this kind of sanity...


----------



## Lazy Llama (Oct 20, 2010)

maldwyn said:


> I'll probably get a copy of iLife11.


£45 in the UK, $49 in the US (which is about £31). Hmph!

I know it's still a bargain, but I can't see how they can justify almost 50% price difference, even when you consider US sales tax, UK VAT etc.


----------



## maldwyn (Oct 20, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> £45 in the UK, $49 in the US (which is about £31). Hmph!
> 
> I know it's still a bargain, but I can't see how they can justify almost 50% price difference, even when you consider US sales tax, UK VAT etc.


 
It's irritating enough to make me think twice about buying it tomorrow - particularly as iWeb & iDVD seem neglected.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Oct 20, 2010)

So...this another step along the way to making the laptops iPads and leaving 'real' computing for the pro types?


----------



## Kanda (Oct 20, 2010)

Kid_Eternity said:


> So...this another step along the way to making the laptops iPads and leaving 'real' computing for the pro types?


 
Not really. I guess you don't have to use it....


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Oct 21, 2010)

Kanda said:


> Not really. I guess you don't have to use it....



Looks like it to me:












They basically say as much too:



> We took our best thinking from Mac OS X and brought it to the iPhone. Then we took our best thinking from the iPhone and brought it to iPad. And now we’re bringing it all back to the Mac...



I didn't buy a Mac to watch it evolve into a dumb computer like the iPad.


----------



## editor (Oct 21, 2010)

Here's just a few of the rules for the Mac App Store:



> Apps containing pornographic material, defined by Webster's Dictionary as "explicit descriptions or displays of sexual organs or activities intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings", will be rejected. Apps that contain user generated content that is frequently pornographic (ex "Chat Roulette" apps) will be rejected.
> 
> 
> "Apps that encourage excessive consumption of alcohol or illegal substances, or encourage minors to consume alcohol or smoke cigarettes, will be rejected. Apps that provide incorrect diagnostic or other inaccurate device data will be rejected. Developers 'spamming' the App Store with many versions of similar apps will be removed from the Mac Developer Program.
> ...


----------



## Kanda (Oct 21, 2010)

Here we go again...


----------



## Crispy (Oct 21, 2010)

You don't have to use it.

If, in the future, you do have to use it, then I won't be buying another Mac.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 21, 2010)

Crispy said:


> If, in the future, you do have to use it, then I won't be buying another Mac.


 
My guess is Apple would dearly love it to be mandatory, but aren't quite so stupid as to actually do it.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Oct 21, 2010)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> My guess is Apple would dearly love it to be mandatory, but aren't quite so stupid as to actually do it.


 
Yet.


----------



## editor (Oct 21, 2010)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> My guess is Apple would dearly love it to be mandatory, but aren't quite so stupid as to actually do it.


It may well become more or less the same thing for smaller developers who will either have to toe Apple's moralistic line or face an increasingly difficult time trying to get noticed by staying outside the store.

That said, it could be really helpful for indie developers looking for exposure and users will no doubt enjoy the simplicity of a centralised app store, although there are concerns where this may be leading.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/21/beltzner_on_apple/
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1034119


----------



## editor (Oct 21, 2010)

Crispy said:


> If, in the future, you do have to use it, then I won't be buying another Mac.


Quoted for posterity  

There's quite a good piece in Salon. 



> Amid a number of announcements the company's CEO, Steve Jobs, made on Wednesday -- notably including the launch of new notebook computers that are (of course) thinner and lighter than ever, which the tech media will no doubt dwell on -- came the news that Apple is bringing the App Store to the Mac. This was the big news, in my view.
> 
> It won't be the only app store for the Mac, Jobs said, just the best one. If it becomes the default method by which people get Mac software, however, that's ultimately not good news.
> 
> ...



A developer serves up the pros and cons: 



> (The App) Store has one advantage for developers: Apple takes care of the nuts and bolts of the operation, leaving developers free to focus on developing software.
> 
> But because Apple runs every aspect of the store, and because it is not afraid to flex its muscle, many of the freedoms I enjoy in my Mac software business are forbidden in the App Store. I can't offer trial downloads of my software; release updates immediately or without Apple's approval; collect contact information from my customers; offer discount coupons, freebies, or bundle deals; or take advantage of innovative, third-party developer technologies.
> 
> In short, every decision about my business -- be it technical, aesthetic, or entrepreneurial -- is ceded in part or wholly to Apple. Keeping a strong foothold on the Mac is one way to make sure that, for one of Apple's platforms at least, the buck still stops with me.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Oct 22, 2010)

Thing with this app store is even if you can get your software another way this will become so popular (new 'halo effect' users will love it) it will undermine getting your apps another way. 

One area I do like however is the new approach to DRM, buy any app and you can install on any iDevice that can run it. Very nice if you have an iPad/MacBook Pro and a iMac and want Pages on all three...


----------



## Crispy (Oct 22, 2010)

Sure about that? Buy an app and get the ipad version free? doesn't sound right


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Oct 22, 2010)

Crispy said:


> Sure about that? Buy an app and get the ipad version free? doesn't sound right


 
That's what Jobs said.


----------



## Kanda (Oct 22, 2010)

Crispy said:


> Sure about that? Buy an app and get the ipad version free? doesn't sound right


 
Why not? You do with iPhone/iPad apps...


----------



## elbows (Oct 23, 2010)

I do not remember Jobs saying this. If Apple wanted to then they could offer such a deal with their own apps. But seeing as iOS versions of apps are different to desktop versions, and the announcement did not include anything about bringing a virtualised iOS layer to the desktop, many iOS apps are not going to be available for the mac. 

As far as Im aware all he said was that if you buy a mac program for personal use through the app-store, you will be able to run it on all your households macs. I may have got this wrong but thats how I took it.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Oct 23, 2010)

Maybe I misheard it then...


----------



## sim667 (Nov 15, 2010)

Has anyone else heard apple are planning on discontinuing mac os x server as of january? I've just been told by a mac 'consultant' at work??


----------



## gabi (Nov 15, 2010)

footie fans, the sky sports app for iphone/ipod touch is wicked... i downloaded it on the w/e. £6 a month for all their channels.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Nov 15, 2010)

sim667 said:


> Has anyone else heard apple are planning on discontinuing mac os x server as of january? I've just been told by a mac 'consultant' at work??


They're discontinuing the xserve (1U rackmount server), not Mac OS X Server (software).

http://www.apple.com/xserve/resources.html


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Nov 15, 2010)

Hmm
what's this


----------



## gabi (Nov 15, 2010)

does that mean they're issuing a fix for the clock thing?


----------



## Lazy Llama (Nov 15, 2010)

Streaming music would be my guess.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 15, 2010)

Throbbing Angel said:


> Hmm
> what's this


 
Free advertising for Apple on u75


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Nov 15, 2010)

teuchter said:


> Free advertising for Apple on u75



Hmm

wonder what the rest of the fucking thread is


----------



## Crispy (Nov 15, 2010)

teuchter said:


> Free advertising for **** on u75


 
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/forums/11-computers-OSs-phones-amp-gadgets


----------



## skyscraper101 (Nov 15, 2010)

iTunes will have to go a long way to convince me it can do any better than Spotify if it is streaming music...


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Nov 15, 2010)

might it be a Ping update in light of the facebook email/google data stream spat?

making it more of a social thing than a music thing?


----------



## skyscraper101 (Nov 15, 2010)

Oh, that would be woefully unexciting.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 15, 2010)

skyscraper101 said:


> iTunes will have to go a long way to convince me it can do any better than Spotify if it is streaming music...


 
Indeed.


----------



## sim667 (Nov 15, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> They're discontinuing the xserve (1U rackmount server), not Mac OS X Server (software).
> 
> http://www.apple.com/xserve/resources.html


 
Bah, I hate rumours...... will they still continue developing the software?


----------



## Lazy Llama (Nov 15, 2010)

sim667 said:


> Bah, I hate rumours...... will they still continue developing the software?


I'd imagine so.
Apparently hardly anyone was buying the Xserve. OS X Server is an option with Mac Pro or Mac Mini so the server platform isn't going anywhere.


----------



## sim667 (Nov 16, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> I'd imagine so.
> Apparently hardly anyone was buying the Xserve. OS X Server is an option with Mac Pro or Mac Mini so the server platform isn't going anywhere.


 
 We've just bought 2 at work :/


----------



## Lazy Llama (Nov 16, 2010)

sim667 said:


> We've just bought 2 at work :/


 I wouldn't worry, they'll be supported for a few years yet.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Nov 16, 2010)

So it looks like the announcement today will in fact be about....

The Beatles finally being available for download on the iTunes Store 

Only 7 years too late too. Is anyone bothered anymore?


----------



## gabi (Nov 16, 2010)

they're still not on spotify, more importantly.

john lennon's solo stuff has turned up tho.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Nov 16, 2010)

That kind of sums it all up though. They're too late to the game with iTunes and legal downloads now. It's blatantly all going the way of streaming services like Spotify - a service I will gladly pay a monthly sub to to get 95% of all music I want to listen to. The fact the Beatles aren't on it (along with Metallica, AC/DC, Zappa, Sugar and a few notable others) only means they're not getting any part of the profits. I know America aren't getting it yet, but it can't be long surely?

I'm certainly not going to start paying to download any of their tracks from iTunes. I'd sooner buy a CD if I was that desperate to hear the music (and if I didn't have it already).


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2010)

Funny thing is, the first legal music services were just like spotify - monthly fee, unlimited listening. For some reason, they weren't succesfu;l and it took itunes to make internet music sales mainstream. odd.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Nov 16, 2010)

Also interesting how Spotify is blatantly modelled directly on iTunes which (credit where it's due) was a fantastic digital music library / player / store all rolled into one. Sadly though it has become so bloated with surplus crap like 'Ping' and so on, and requires constant updating and upgrading - it's just become a cumbersome app now.


----------



## sim667 (Nov 16, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> I wouldn't worry, they'll be supported for a few years yet.


 
Im not worried, they're not my responsibility.


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2010)

iTunes does pretty well in terms of sales so whilst I would not bet anything on the longer-term trends, we can hardly say they have totally failed with too little too late.

When speculating with my Dad yesterday I did initially come up with The Beatles as a possibility, but I wasnt being too serious at the time, now I see all the rumours point in that direction. Should hep the Christmas revenue.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2010)

skyscraper101 said:


> Also interesting how Spotify is blatantly modelled directly on iTunes which (credit where it's due) was a fantastic digital music library / player / store all rolled into one. Sadly though it has become so bloated with surplus crap like 'Ping' and so on, and requires constant updating and upgrading - it's just become a cumbersome app now.


 
itunes needs a major rewrite/slimming regime.


----------



## grit (Nov 16, 2010)

skyscraper101 said:


> Also interesting how Spotify is blatantly modelled directly on iTunes which (credit where it's due) was a fantastic digital music library / player / store all rolled into one. Sadly though it has become so bloated with surplus crap like 'Ping' and so on, and requires constant updating and upgrading - it's just become a cumbersome app now.


 
I dont think thats fair to spotify to be honest.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2010)

Oh, and it was the Beatles after all. Yawn.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Nov 16, 2010)

grit said:


> I dont think thats fair to spotify to be honest.


 
How so? There are many similarities.

Spotify is ultimately nicer in almost every respect though (except for the seemless progression between mix albums, and the searching within playlist which could both be more iTunes like if you ask me)


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2010)

Spotify is fantastic for discovering new things, with its little biographies and links to other artists


----------



## sim667 (Nov 16, 2010)

Crispy said:


> Oh, and it was the Beatles after all. Yawn.


 
Hardly 'unforgettable'

I couldnt give a toss tbh.


----------



## magneze (Nov 16, 2010)

This makes the front page of the BBC news site. They really should get Apple to pay if they're going to do their advertising.


----------



## grit (Nov 16, 2010)

skyscraper101 said:


> How so? There are many similarities.
> 
> Spotify is ultimately nicer in almost every respect though (except for the seemless progression between mix albums, and the searching within playlist which could both be more iTunes like if you ask me)


 
Just as you have said, yes they are similar (along with a bunch of other media players) however spotify implemented the style of interface a lot better.


----------



## strung out (Nov 16, 2010)

well done foxnews

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/15/apple-itunes-gets-rights-beatles/?test=faces


----------



## stupid dogbot (Nov 16, 2010)

"Manchester's?"

That'll go down well...


----------



## spacemonkey (Nov 16, 2010)

What an unforgettable day.

Right up there with my graduation and losing my virginity.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 16, 2010)

Was that _it_?

*looks round the back*


----------



## skyscraper101 (Nov 16, 2010)

So who's gonna be rushing off down the iTunes Music Store right now and buying some Beatles?

Anyone....?


----------



## magneze (Nov 16, 2010)

It's the beginning of the end for Apple. You heard it here first.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 16, 2010)

I know Apple PR does try very hard to hype some complete non-events, but this is pushing it real good.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 16, 2010)

Apple did no hyping at all though - they just put that image up on their website and the internet hype machine did all the work for them


----------



## maldwyn (Nov 16, 2010)

Cry wolf.  

This must count as a PR negative.


----------



## tarannau (Nov 16, 2010)

You think? Anything Beatles related instantly seems to be news. 

I am not feeling the love or seeing the point myself, but I suspect there'll be more than a slight bit of press coverage tomorrow.


----------



## maldwyn (Nov 16, 2010)

Expectations were high streaming/cloud storage.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Nov 16, 2010)

Beatles CD box set w/physical art, lossless audio? $130

Compressed iTunes files? $150

Fail.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 16, 2010)

I don't care what the high priests of the anti Apple brigade say that company are fucking PR geniuses! They changed an image on their site and that's it, and had HUGE fucking coverage because of it. Can't think of many corporations with that kinds of power...


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2010)

This is hardly the first time Apple have announced something which for many people on the net has fallen way short of their expectations. Even the iPad announcement was met with quite a barrage of negative feelings about being let down, all the things it had missing, ridicule over the name etc, but in the end this did not translate into Apple or iPad failure.

My Dad was happy about the announcement. Apple have likely shifted quite a bit of kit to people outside the younger age demographics and if there are enough of them to care about this stuff then it doesnt really matter about al the people who dont give two poops about the Beatles on iTunes.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 16, 2010)

If you're going to run blind teasers, you need to have a reputation for delivering something significant after them. This is the sort of thing that should have just been a simple press release.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 16, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> If you're going to run blind teasers, you need to have a reputation for delivering something significant after them. This is the sort of thing that should have just been a simple press release.


 
That'd probably be the case for most companies but Apple will do this shit again and the coverage won't have dropped...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 16, 2010)

Oh, it takes a while to ruin a reputation, but it can still happen if you do this sort of thing. I'm already much less interested in Apple teasers than I was a year or two ago, possibly partly due to burnout as well.


----------



## editor (Nov 16, 2010)

All 17 Beatles albums are in the Top 100 on iTunes now. 

Apple certainly did hype it up btw, billing the announcement as, "Tomorrow is just another day. That you'll never forget."

I think I just might forget, you know.


----------



## editor (Nov 17, 2010)

This kid certainly has some entrepreneurial skillz, but it looks like things might be going pear shaped...


> Teenager Could Go to Jail for Selling White iPhone Conversion Kits
> 
> Lam launched a site called WhiteiPhone4Now where impatient iPhone fanatics could get full conversion kits for $279; major media attention followed, and Lam says that he’s made more than $130,000 since August, money which he says will go towards his college education.
> 
> ...


----------



## strung out (Nov 17, 2010)

how stupid. apparently the parts aren't even stolen! he just bought them off apple's supplier before they got sold to apple didn't he?


----------



## ovaltina (Nov 18, 2010)

editor said:


> WhiteiPhone4Now


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Nov 18, 2010)

stupid dogbot said:


> "Manchester's?"
> 
> That'll go down well...


 
 

now changed


----------



## editor (Nov 21, 2010)

Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs. Under a tree. Kissing. Possibly.



> *Is Rupert Murdoch’s iPad-Only Newspaper the Future of Journalism?*
> 
> 
> Apple and News Corp are reportedly set to launch The Daily, the first iPad-only news publication. Can Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs usher journalism into a new digital age?
> ...


----------



## editor (Nov 22, 2010)

More in the Guardian:



> Rupert Murdoch, head of the media giant News Corp, and Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, are preparing to unveil a new digital "newspaper" called the Daily at the end of this month, according to reports in the US media.
> 
> The collaboration, which has been secretly under development in New York for several months, promises to be the world's first "newspaper" designed exclusively for new tablet-style computers such as Apple's iPad, with a launch planned for early next year.
> 
> ...


http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/21/ipad-newspaper-steve-jobs-rupert-murdoch


----------



## Lazy Llama (Nov 22, 2010)

editor said:


> More in the Guardian:
> 
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/21/ipad-newspaper-steve-jobs-rupert-murdoch


 


> According to Women’s Wear Daily


What an unusual source.


----------



## editor (Nov 22, 2010)

Lazy Llama said:


> What an unusual source.


Indeed!


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Nov 22, 2010)

Orange and T-Mobile to subsidise iPad

or so it seems - nothing on http://everythingeverywhere.com/ yet

"It is understood Apple’s device will cost £200 on 24 month contract across both brands, with a website to register interest to go live shortly."


Xmas ipad wars!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 22, 2010)

Throbbing Angel said:


> Orange and T-Mobile to subsidise iPad
> 
> or so it seems - nothing on http://everythingeverywhere.com/ yet
> 
> ...


 
Excellent!


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Nov 22, 2010)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Excellent!


 
here y'go  http://newsroom.orange.co.uk/2010/11/22/orange-uk-to-offer-new-ipad-purchase-options/

similar stmnt on Tmobile site - no numbers


----------



## sim667 (Nov 22, 2010)

How much are the contracts likely to be per month?


----------



## paolo (Nov 22, 2010)

Bonkers. What next for contracts? HiFi? Televisions? The age of Radio Rentals is born again.


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Nov 22, 2010)

sim667 said:


> How much are the contracts likely to be per month?



I dunno - it's gonna be £20+ though innit as the phone company will be paying the full whack for the ipad to Apple
16gb ipad on a £20 a month for 24 months plus £200 initial payment is £680 against the £529 RRP - -bit of profit in there

daft prices though I reckon


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Nov 22, 2010)

paolo999 said:


> Bonkers. What next for contracts? HiFi? Televisions? The age of Radio Rentals is born again.


 
You'll be getting them in BrightHouse soon


----------



## spacemonkey (Nov 22, 2010)

paolo999 said:


> Bonkers. What next for contracts? HiFi? Televisions? The age of Radio Rentals is born again.


 
I've seen loads of contracts that offer a 'free tv'.


----------



## paolo (Nov 22, 2010)

spacemonkey said:


> I've seen loads of contracts that offer a 'free tv'.


----------



## Fingers (Nov 22, 2010)

iOS 4.2 is out now people


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 22, 2010)

Fingers said:


> iOS 4.2 is out now people



What's new?


----------



## editor (Nov 22, 2010)

Kid_Eternity said:


> What's new?


Multi tasking for iPad - that's the only massive improvement - and some other tweaks.

http://www.wirefresh.com/apple-releases-ios-4-2-update-for-iphone-ipad-and-ipod-touch/


----------



## Fingers (Nov 22, 2010)

not sure yet, currently battling with shitty itunes. i am hoping it has speeded it up.  it would be great if i didn't have to press the button 20 times to wake the fucking thing


----------



## editor (Nov 22, 2010)

Leonardo DiCaprio asks Steve Jobs to dip into his over-stuffed pockets and donate some cash to the World Wildlife Fund to build support for tiger conservation.

Much shoulder shrugging follows:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/dicaprio-presses-apple-to-aid-wild-tigers/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 22, 2010)

Ah lame the excellent find your iDevice thing is only for iPhone 4...why can't us 3GS owners have it too dammit!


----------



## maldwyn (Nov 22, 2010)

> "DiCaprio Presses Apple to Aid Wild Tigers," could be read two ways, one of which implied the movie star was making cider to save tigers


----------



## sim667 (Nov 22, 2010)

Throbbing Angel said:


> I dunno - it's gonna be £20+ though innit as the phone company will be paying the full whack for the ipad to Apple
> 16gb ipad on a £20 a month for 24 months plus £200 initial payment is £680 against the £529 RRP - -bit of profit in there
> 
> daft prices though I reckon


 
yeah bollox to that. I'd probably only use it in my house anyway


----------



## fjydj (Nov 23, 2010)

Kid_Eternity said:


> What's new?


 
Air play is good, streams from radio app or you tube etc to an old airport express... In the background! No set up, it just works... Very impressed with that.


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Nov 23, 2010)

sim667 said:


> yeah bollox to that. I'd probably only use it in my house anyway





"register you interest" is now live on both Orange and Tmobile sites


----------



## stupid dogbot (Nov 23, 2010)

sim667 said:


> yeah bollox to that. I'd probably only use it in my house anyway


 
Same, I only want the WiFi model...


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Nov 23, 2010)

Throbbing Angel said:


> I dunno - it's gonna be £20+ though innit as the phone company will be paying the full whack for the ipad to Apple
> 16gb ipad on a £20 a month for 24 months plus £200 initial payment is £680 against the £529 RRP - -bit of profit in there
> 
> daft prices though I reckon


 
You do get a data connection for that though. 

Alternatively just set up your smart phone as wifi router.


----------



## sim667 (Nov 23, 2010)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Ah lame the excellent find your iDevice thing is only for iPhone 4...why can't us 3GS owners have it too dammit!


 
You mean find your device on the mobile me subscription? 

Works on all iphones i thought, I used it on my 3G all the time.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 23, 2010)

The new free version is for latest models only. Paid subscribers still get it on older models.


----------



## sim667 (Nov 23, 2010)

Crispy said:


> The new free version is for latest models only. Paid subscribers still get it on older models.


 
oh i see.


----------



## editor (Nov 27, 2010)

Well worthy of an iFacepalm

Apple Bans Android Magazine From The App Store

http://gizmodo.com/5700063/apple-bans-android-magazine-from-the-app-store


----------



## maldwyn (Jan 6, 2011)

Will the Mac App store open at 6pm today?
http://www.macworld.co.uk/macsoftware/news/?newsid=3255300


----------



## Crispy (Jan 6, 2011)

Very likely yes. I am deeply, deeply unexcited about this


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2011)

Yeah Im not exactly wetting myself with anticipation either.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2011)

The UK government are getting involved with Apple's refusal to allow donations to be made from iPhone and iPad apps.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/06/apple-apps-donations

Oh, and Apple paid the Beatles vast pots of cash to get them onto iTunes:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7050IC20110106


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Very likely yes. I am deeply, deeply unexcited about this


 
I dunno I like the idea of being able to get iWork or iLife stuff as individual apps now...


----------



## maldwyn (Jan 6, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I dunno I like the idea of being able to get iWork or iLife stuff as individual apps now...


But will I be able to use a single download on multiple machines - or is it multi/family downloads from now on?


----------



## The Groke (Jan 6, 2011)

elbows said:


> Yeah Im not exactly wetting myself with anticipation either.


 
Will be useful for me.

I always buy apps digitally if I can.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2011)

Almost every app Ive purchased in the last 6 years has been digitally, just not that excited about having an additional way to do this. If software comes into being that would otherwise not have been created then my interest will grow.

As a potential developer this stuff is of some interest to me, will have to wait and see how well the store does.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2011)

Mashable says it's live here but can't see any download button: http://www.apple.com/mac/app-store/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2011)

Ah there's a software update that's just appeared...


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 6, 2011)

Yeah, requires OS X 10.6.6


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2011)

£8.99 for the new iPhoto and £11.99 for Pages etc. Nice!


----------



## maldwyn (Jan 6, 2011)

maldwyn said:


> But will I be able to use a single download on multiple machines ?





> You can install apps on every Mac you use and even download them again. This is especially convenient when you buy a new Mac and want to load it with apps you already own.


Useful to know.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2011)

Pixelmator has moved to the App Store. Introductory price of £17.99. Version 2.0 scheduled for later this year will be free if you buy pixelmator from the app store, but if you already own Pixelmator and dont buy it again from the app store you will not get 2.0 for free.

http://www.pixelmator.com/transition/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2011)

Great so having paid full wack for it I've got to buy it again to get updates?


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Great so having paid full wack for it I've got to buy it again to get updates?


 
Thats certainly an understandable reaction, but when I stepped back to ponder on this I realised that I would likely have had to pay something as an upgrade fee when the next major version came out anyway. So I might end up paying much sooner than I would otherwise (as I probably want to buy now while the price is at an introductory level), but its not actually costing me more and much ofthe feeling of 'its not fair' really stems from the idea that new users are getting a better deal than we got.

And as far as I understand there will, in the meantime, be the sorts of smaller incremental updates that we are used to with Pixelmator, and you will still get those.

The big unknown is what price level the app will sell for in the longer term. Obviously app developers have taken a bit of a guess at what their competitors will do, and what customers will go for, because its only day 1. From what I have seen so far quite a few apps are cheaper than they were when sold via other means, but there are still quite a number of pretty pricey apps in the store already. The free and cheap apps in quite a number of cases seem to be iOS apps that have now been ported to OS X, especially games.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2011)

Yeah I'll get over it soon enough...my feeling is the app store will have the same affect although not quite as dramatically as the iPhone and iPad ones, it will lead to cheaper apps but you wont suddenly get Photoshop for 4.99...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 6, 2011)

I think that's hugely cheeky, myself, and I hope no other companies go down that route, though I imagine they will. This is the sort of thing that made me think the whole idea was bad in the first place, that it would become the de facto distribution mechanism with all the dodgy limitations that come with it. It's perfectly _possible_ to have simultaneous App Store and independent downloads, but new software won't, and this indicates that even older companies who already have payment and licencing mechanisms may not.

I may stop using Pixelmator, even though it is very good software. I absolutely do not want critical apps - and I use Pixelmator for work, I have lots of artwork files in .pxm format knocking about - that is linked to my bloody Apple ID and requires remote verification. I'm not fussed about it with the iPad and iPhone because the apps I use there don't use proprietorial formats, they're viewers and editors for data that other apps not limited in the same way can access (e.g. Pages, iThoughts, that Dropbox-based text editor that I can't remember the name of). If I lose the ability to use those for some reason I'm okay, I can still access and edit those files with other apps.

I'll stop using iWork as well if it goes App Store only.


----------



## Winot (Jan 7, 2011)

Is this the first stage in cutting the connection between the app store and iTunes?


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2011)

Don't forget all these apps have to be approved by Apple too, so developers can expect more thumb-twiddling while they get around to it, and - no doubt - see their apps arbitrarily lobbed out on moralistic/weird/'just do't like it' grounds.

I think it'll be great news for the mainstream devs, but smaller ones may well suffer.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2011)

Winot said:


> Is this the first stage in cutting the connection between the app store and iTunes?


 
Im not convinced they have any plans to do that.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2011)

editor said:


> I think it'll be great news for the mainstream devs, but smaller ones may well suffer.


 
I dont think the suffering will be split along those lines, in fact the app store can be a distinct advantage to the smaller dev because it takes away their need to put sales infrastructure in place themselves, and if their product gets hot then they get a priceless amount of free advertising/publicity via the app store charts.

Rather the drawbacks from a developer point of view really come down to whether your app does something that Apple dont like, whether it be in terms of functionality and content, or using APIs that Apple dont approve of.


----------



## paolo (Jan 7, 2011)

editor said:


> The UK government are getting involved with Apple's refusal to allow donations to be made from iPhone and iPad apps.
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/06/apple-apps-donations


 
What does Google offer, in terms of in-app payments on Android?


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2011)

paolo999 said:


> What does Google offer, in terms of in-app payments on Android?


A PayPal app, for starters.



> Just in time for the holidays, PayPal has added a donations feature to our PayPal Mobile for Android app. Now Android users have a fast and convenient way to make charitable contributions to more than 23,000 charities in the U.S, U.K and Canada, including World Food Program USA, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Children’s Miracle Network and Habitat for Humanity International, through our two partners MissionFish and Artez Interactive. With one week left in 2010, there’s still time to make a few last minute donations by year’s end, and the new PayPal Android app makes donating easier than ever.
> 
> Not only does the new feature help to simplify the donation process and help users to donate while on the go, it also helps charities reach more donors and expand their base of contributors. The PayPal Mobile app has already been downloaded five million times, and is available in 40 markets, 10 languages and works with all 24 currencies that PayPal supports. With features like searching for nearby charities and the ability to post your donation to Facebook, we think this is really going to help both local and international charities increase the funds they raise, especially for this holiday season.
> 
> https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2010/12/android-users-giving-to-charity-now-easier-with-paypal-mobile/


The iPhone version of this was banned by Apple.


> In August, PayPal introduced a feature that let people make donations through its iPhone app to more than 23,000 charities in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. This was powered by MissionFish.
> 
> Just two months later, Apple demanded that PayPal eliminate the donation system from its app. PayPal spokesperson Anuj Nayar said the donations feature was removed from version 3.0 of Paypal's iPhone app at Apple's request, Gizmodo reported. By then, PayPal had already raised more than US$10,000 in donations that averaged $12 each.
> 
> http://www.technewsworld.com/story/71424.html


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2011)

The Mac App Store has been hacked already:



> It seems as if Logan has worked out a way of getting paid apps for free, simply by moving a few file types around after getting a free app (Twitter) and a paid app (Angry Birds) the conventional way.
> 
> There's a video tutorial below of how to do it, but remember - the Cupertino lawyers won't be best pleased if you engage in this sort of behaviour.




http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/37756/mac-app-store-hacked-already


BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12135460


----------



## Crispy (Jan 7, 2011)

editor said:


> A PayPal app, for starters.


 
He means in-app purchases, not a separate paypal app.
ie. In the app, you tap a button and pay money (for extensions to the app or other services)


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2011)

Regarding th hacking: Dear oh dear, thats terrible!

It does sound like that particular exploit only affects certain apps, and you have to have gotten a copy of the disk image from somewhere/someone else, but even so this is a serious issue that may well shake developers faith in the platform.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2011)

Crispy said:


> He means in-app purchases, not a separate paypal app.
> ie. In the app, you tap a button and pay money (for extensions to the app or other services)


You mean like this?



> Android allows an apps user to make donations directly through the application which makes it very attractive to major charitiers, like the Salvation Army.
> 
> Givatron takes giving and donating to a whole new level. Giveatron allows the user to give or donate to any charity registered in it’s system in the United States and instantly have access to a printable receipt for tax purposes. The easy to use application, once installed, allows the user to peruse a database with all North American charities and then donate using paypals in-app payment processing system. The app will then generate a receipt for tax deduction purposes and lets the user decide whether they want to share their information with the charity or donate anonymously.
> 
> http://thedroidguy.com/2010/12/givatron-makes-donating-easy-on-android/



Example: http://www.getjar.com/Salvation-Army


----------



## Crispy (Jan 7, 2011)

Again, that's paypal. On iOS, it all gets charged to the same iTunes account. I presume you need an account for the Android Marketplace - can Android apps charge to that account?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 7, 2011)

editor said:


> Don't forget all these apps have to be approved by Apple too, so developers can expect more thumb-twiddling while they get around to it, and - no doubt - see their apps arbitrarily lobbed out on moralistic/weird/'just do't like it' grounds.
> 
> I think it'll be great news for the mainstream devs, but smaller ones may well suffer.


 
Less of an issue here as they can still sell their apps on their own sites. It's a bigger issue on the iPhone etc because the app store there is the only way to get apps...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 7, 2011)

elbows said:


> Im not convinced they have any plans to do that.


 
Wouldn't surprise if they are in prep for itunes.com.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Again, that's paypal. On iOS, it all gets charged to the same iTunes account. I presume you need an account for the Android Marketplace - can Android apps charge to that account?


Why are you so hung up about the mechanism?

You asked if it was possible to make in-app charitable donations on Android and the answer is clearly "yes," via Paypal - something Apple explicitly banned, so charities are missing out.

Apple also kicked off apps used to raise funds for Wikileaks while their Android counterparts remained.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 7, 2011)

I made no mention of charitable donations at all 
I was talking about in-app purchases. The mechanism matters because not everyone has a paypal account (in some countries, it's impossible to get one). But everyone with an iphone has an itunes account. Presumably everyone with an Android has a Marketplace account. But I don't know exactly what the situation is - hence why I'm asking about it.


----------



## editor (Jan 7, 2011)

Sorry, I thought you were referring to the link I posted up.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 7, 2011)

crossed wires there a bit 
Some googling reveals that in-app purchases are not possible on Android - you have to sell additional content as separate apps.


----------



## paolo (Jan 10, 2011)

editor said:


> Why are you so hung up about the mechanism?


 



			
				The Guardian said:
			
		

> "Hurd accused Apple of "dragging its heels" over its refusal to allow users to make *in-app* donations to charities and non-profit organisations."



I'm assuming that your interpretation is that Hurd would see a single application, e.g. Paypal, as sufficient.

That's not my interpretation.


----------



## editor (Jan 10, 2011)

paolo999 said:


> I'm assuming that your interpretation is that Hurd would see a single application, e.g. Paypal, as sufficient.
> 
> That's not my interpretation.


The bottom line is that charities - and Wikileaks - can easily raise donations via Android but can't do the same via Apple and I imagine that's all that matters to them.


----------



## paolo (Jan 10, 2011)

editor said:


> The bottom line is that charities - and Wikileaks - can easily raise donations via Android but can't do the same via Apple and I imagine that's all that matters to them.


 
I thought that's what you'd be imagining. But it's not what the news story you posted says.


----------



## London_Calling (Jan 10, 2011)

Are Dell first to market with their tablet/netbook thing, like the idea but the frame maybe feels a little tacky and, of course, there's the lack of Apps?

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/23/dell-inspiron-duo-tablet-netbook-now-up-for-pre-order/ - the one I saw was in black, btw.

Has to be the way forward, surely . . .


----------



## editor (Jan 10, 2011)

paolo999 said:


> I thought that's what you'd be imagining. But it's not what the news story you posted says.


The stories say that Apple banned the PayPal app and the Wikileaks apps. Which bit of that is inaccurate?


----------



## paolo (Jan 10, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> There's the lack of Apps?


 
On Windows?

I think the main flaw here is that there's no touch OS installed.


----------



## editor (Jan 10, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> Are Dell first to market with their tablet/netbook thing, like the idea but the frame maybe feels a little tacky and, of course, there's the lack of Apps?
> 
> http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/23/dell-inspiron-duo-tablet-netbook-now-up-for-pre-order/ - the one I saw was in black, btw.
> 
> Has to be the way forward, surely . . .


It looks a bit bonkers tbh, although I can see the concept might work if you can get your head around a spinning screen thingy.


----------



## magneze (Jan 10, 2011)

I can't see the tablet/netbook hybrids getting very far. Too much mechanism to go wrong - just as SSDs are displacing mechanical hard disks this seems like a backwards step.


----------



## London_Calling (Jan 10, 2011)

Ah, I was confused on the Apps . .

It's not really a diff concept and it works as you'd expect in both roles. The transition of the screen is slightly weird but that might be because it's a new idea or because it is a bit cheap-feeling. Give it a cool swivel axis and it might be a goer. Has to be a decent market for it imo, and I_ think_ I read several company's are almost ready with their versions. Not seen any others yet though . . .


----------



## paolo (Jan 10, 2011)

editor said:


> The stories say that Apple banned the PayPal app and the Wikileaks apps. Which bit of that is inaccurate?



That's correct, but that's the journalist's observation, not Hurd's issue, according to the story.

Your post was about government concern. The government isn't, it seems, concerned about what you are now highlighting.


----------



## editor (Jan 10, 2011)

magneze said:


> I can't see the tablet/netbook hybrids getting very far. Too much mechanism to go wrong - just as SSDs are displacing mechanical hard disks this seems like a backwards step.


The Lenovo one seems better executed: 







No idea if it will be usable in the real world mind.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 10, 2011)

Evernote developer totally loving the new Mac App Store, says it changes everything: 



> Since the App Store launch, more than half of Evernote’s new users across all platforms are coming from the Mac. In fact, between Mac App Store launch and midnight on January 7th, Evernote saw 90,000 client downloads across both new and existing users.
> 
> Evernote CEO Phil Libin’s comments about these numbers indicate that his company is rethinking their entire strategy based on these numbers.


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Jan 11, 2011)

editor said:


> The Lenovo one seems better executed:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
is that thing out yet? I remember watching vids about it months and months ago


----------



## editor (Jan 20, 2011)

The company may be raking in record-breaking profits for Q1 2011, shifting over 7 million iPads and 16.2 million iPhones with a revenue of more than $26 billion, but it seems they now have the worst environmental and safety standards record in China:



> The Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) has – together with other environmentalist groups – published a report detailing the alleged malpractice in Apple’s supply chain, which resulted in some workers being poisoned and disabled and communities being polluted.
> 
> The report places Apple at the bottom of a list of 29 technology manufacturers, and Nokia, Sony, Ericsson and LG were also criticized for their poor practices. On the other hand, the report praises Hewlett-Packard, Vodafone, Samsung, Toshiba, Sharp, Hitachi, BT and Alcatel-Lucent for taking measures to improve conditions or supervision of manufacturing in their supply chain.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Jan 20, 2011)

Well I think its a disgrace that we only hear about this stuff sporadically, there is no sustained media interest in the plight of Chinese workers it seems. When there is attention, they are forced to make some changes. I would like to be able to monitor Foxconns progress in particular, last I heard they were constructing new factories much closer to where the workers come from, to get away from the 'giant camp where the workers also live & socialise' model. I assume there are other motives for them doing this too, such as keeping wages down , but I'veno info to back up this assertion.

The whole thing with the screen cleaning chemical poisoning workers was horrific as well, I wishI had more faith that similar incidents will not occur in future.

I doubt Apple are the worst purely in terms of damage done, but their high profile and claims to be all caring and lovely do make them the logical target for stories of this stuff, and so it should be.

As for nvironmental issues rather than worker safety, I dont remember hearing of whole communities being poisoned, I would like to know the substance of this, does anyone know if the full report is available in English? Certainly in terms of the substances used in their products, they made progress on this issue some years ago, after initially being stupdily defensive about their green policies. But as manufacturing and industrialisation in general seem to mostly come at the expense of environment & health, I doubt all is rosy.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 20, 2011)

Total shit to have such as a bad record on this but I do wonder how they compare to all the other tech companies working out of China?


----------



## editor (Jan 20, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Total shit to have such as a bad record on this but I do wonder how they compare to all the other tech companies working out of China?


The Reuters report says that Apple came bottom out of 29 big technology manufacturers, although I haven't tracked down the original 
 Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) report yet.


----------



## elbows (Jan 20, 2011)

Im not convinced there is an English version of the report (yet).

http://www.ipe.org.cn/En/about/report.aspx


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 20, 2011)

editor said:


> The Reuters report says that Apple came bottom out of 29 big technology manufacturers, although I haven't tracked down the original
> Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) report yet.


 
Yep read that Nokia etc came above them. No news on where HTC are though?


----------



## elbows (Jan 20, 2011)

Attempts by me to computer-translate some of the reports were not overly successful, but from what I did manage to glean, along with the original Reuters story, I am tentatively concluding that a major reason Apple have been ranked so poorly is because of their failure to cooperate with NGOs such as the one writing the report, and failure to be very transparent about their Chinese supply chain. This, combined with the existing tales of horror that emerged in recent years, along with the high profile of Apple, makes them a worthy target.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 23, 2011)

It always used to amuse me the way people used to criticise Apple over the iPhone when it first came out, this snippet from the former CEO of Syncplicity talks about why he thinks Dropbox beat them is not disimilar to what Apple did/does...



> ...the best thing you can do is keep your feature set small and focused. Do one thing as best as you possibly can. Your users will beg and beg for more functionality. They will tell you their problems and ask you to fix it. My philosophy is that they're right if their feature request is right only if it works for 80% of your customers. Until you have a lot of resources, stay focused on your core competency.
> 
> The best part about having a simple product is that it's easy to sell & easy to support. If your product is too complicated, you'll spend all day on customer support & bug fixing. I've been there -- it's no fun.


----------



## paolo (Jan 23, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yep read that Nokia etc came above them. No news on where HTC are though?


 
Odd. They're quite big now. Wonder why they were excluded from the report?

What's your take on that Ed?


----------



## editor (Jan 23, 2011)

paolo999 said:


> Odd. They're quite big now. Wonder why they were excluded from the report?
> 
> What's your take on that Ed?


Not sure why you're asking me! I've no idea if HTC even have factories in China, although I've just learnt from trying to find out that they're one of the very few big tech companies run by a woman. 

Oh hang on - they've got a factories in Shanghai and Taiwan.



> Chou said that HTC has invested a total of US$32 million in its Shanghai branch and expects the total production of this plant to increase from one million to two million phones each month. HTC is also expanding its original manufacturing plant in Taoyuan in northern Taiwan, which currently turns out three million phones each month.
> 
> http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20110122000029&cid=1204



Greenpeace's guide to greener electronics has Nokia and Sony Ericsson miles ahead of everyone else, and Apple in 9th
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/electronics/how-the-companies-line-up/


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2011)

The Greenpeace stuff confirms that Apple scores badly because of a lack of communication about its supply chain & future plans for phasing out certain chemicals. Its poor scores for energy are also related to a lack of info.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 16, 2011)

*Apple: rumours & speculation*

Has Intel just leaked the new MacBook Pro?






More here.


----------



## Paulie Tandoori (Feb 16, 2011)

my apple's gone rotten.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 16, 2011)

No, they haven't. It's a picture done in Illustrator of a generic slimline laptop in a processor advert.

Apple laptops will gradually move towards the basics of the Air IMO but this doesn't say anything about that process.


----------



## pk (Feb 16, 2011)

I thought Apple were moving away from Intel and using their own chips for the processing, as with the iPad...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 16, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> No, they haven't. It's a picture done in Illustrator of a generic slimline laptop in a processor advert.
> 
> Apple laptops will gradually move towards the basics of the Air IMO but this doesn't say anything about that process.


 
Agree about the Air thing, won't be long before there's just one MacBook pro line which is essentially the Air with bigger and better storage...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 16, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Agree about the Air thing, won't be long before there's just one MacBook pro line which is essentially the Air with bigger and better storage...


I got one of the 11.6" Airs last week. It's the lowest spec one and it still effectively outperforms my old MBP, despite having a significantly worse processor. SSD drives make so much difference, and the thing runs for a good five hours without issue - I often don't bother taking a power brick with me at all, let alone plugging it in. It's the future. It'll be lightweight super-portable laptops and desktops with big fuck-off screens... I expect they'll keep a 17" version around for a while but more as a prestige model and to mollify a market sector than as a big seller.


----------



## editor (Feb 16, 2011)

OMG! It might be in black! BLACK!!!! Can you believe it? A laptop in BLACK?!!!!! It says so in a rubbish drawing in a crappy ad!!! Unbelievable!

Well worth another new thread.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 16, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I got one of the 11.6" Airs last week. It's the lowest spec one and it still effectively outperforms my old MBP, despite having a significantly worse processor. SSD drives make so much difference, and the thing runs for a good five hours without issue - I often don't bother taking a power brick with me at all, let alone plugging it in. It's the future. It'll be lightweight super-portable laptops and desktops with big fuck-off screens... I expect they'll keep a 17" version around for a while but more as a prestige model and to mollify a market sector than as a big seller.



Yep pretty much agree with that. The 11 inch Air is very nice indeed too!


----------



## samiam (Feb 16, 2011)

I've never had an apple computer before in my life. What is so great about them?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 16, 2011)

samiam said:


> I've never had an apple computer before in my life. What is so great about them?


 
Question of choice, if you like to play less and tinker with your machine a lot a PC is great, if you can pay more and like your machine to just work with very little faffing then the Mac is great.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 16, 2011)

samiam said:


> I've never had an apple computer before in my life. What is so great about them?


 
interesting


----------



## samiam (Feb 16, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Question of choice, if you like to play less and tinker with your machine a lot a PC is great, if you can pay more and like your machine to just work with very little faffing then the Mac is great.


 
thanks


----------



## samiam (Feb 16, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> interesting


 
lol


----------



## editor (Feb 17, 2011)

samiam said:


> lol


Thanks. Bye!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 17, 2011)

Weird. Anyhoo...


----------



## Crispy (Feb 17, 2011)

editor said:


> OMG! It might be in black! BLACK!!!! Can you believe it? A laptop in BLACK?!!!!! It says so in a rubbish drawing in a crappy ad!!! Unbelievable!
> 
> Well worth another new thread.


 
Duly noted and merged


----------



## skyscraper101 (Feb 17, 2011)

I like black. My current macbook is black. I'd chose black over the silver one they've got now anyday.


----------



## editor (Feb 17, 2011)

skyscraper101 said:


> I like black. My current macbook is black. I'd chose black over the silver one they've got now anyday.


I'd prefer a black MacBook too, given the choice, although I don't want any laptop that comes with an illuminated advert built into the lid.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Feb 17, 2011)

editor said:


> I'd prefer a black MacBook too, given the choice, although I don't want any laptop that comes with an illuminated advert built into the lid.


 
Yeah, that'd be a huge buying point for me...


----------



## King Biscuit Time (Feb 17, 2011)

I've just taken delivery of my new work computer A black Mac!!

Well, ok. My 1998 vintage PC finally packed in, so I went to the computer graveyard cupboard (which until recently contained Mactintosh SE20s from the late 1980s) and picked the least shit machine in there. It's a 2000 vintage G3 black powerbook. Just like the one Carrie Bradshaw used to have.

It does have an illuminated advert in the lid, but interestingly, when viewed from the front, the apple looks upside down. This is presumably before Apple twigged on to the fact that a right-way-up apple would look way-cool through the window of Starbucks.

In all seriousness, I know it's over a decade old, but I quite like this computer. If my endless boss-nagging ever pays off, I'm going to ask for a modern version.


----------



## maldwyn (Feb 17, 2011)

My MBP is black - well the shell I covered it with, nicely blocks out the logo too .


----------



## editor (Feb 17, 2011)

MacBook Pros are lovely looking laptops. If I had to take one laptop on a long journey, it would either be a MBP or a ThinkPad.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Feb 17, 2011)

editor said:


> I'd prefer a black MacBook too, given the choice, although I don't want any laptop that comes with an illuminated advert built into the lid.


 
My mate put stickers all over his MacBook Pro to avoid this.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 17, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Duly noted and merged


 
Ah very cool, did a search for this thread but couldn't find it for some reason...


----------



## editor (Feb 17, 2011)

This is quite an interesting reaction to Apple's 30% subscription model:



> Why Are You People Defending Apple?
> 
> I don’t take issue with Apple demanding a small processing fee to handle credit card*transactions, but 30% is too much, especially combined with the restriction that publishers can’t change their pricing to adjust to the tax. Not every business will be able to offset the decrease in margins with the increased purchase volume promised by one-click payments. And companies that are in the business of reselling premium content with fixed costs, like MOG or Amazon, don’t have many options.
> 
> ...


----------



## Crispy (Feb 17, 2011)

If things continue as they have done, I fully expect some sort of anti-trust lawsuit against apple that will force them to open the app store up


----------



## editor (Feb 17, 2011)

Crispy said:


> If things continue as they have done, I fully expect some sort of anti-trust lawsuit against apple that will force them to open the app store up


It's still got some way to go before it reaches that stage,  by the looks of things:



> Apple faces little risk of antitrust threats to the new App Store rules that require content sellers to hand over 30% of their revenues, a legal expert said today.
> 
> "It would be a steep, uphill climb," said Hillard Sterling, an antitrust attorney and partner with the Chicago-based law firm of Freeborn & Peters. "The challengers would have to show that Apple has precluded competition in the marketplace. But there are plenty of platforms where publishers can offer their products outside the App Store."
> 
> ...



What _might_ make a difference is if a load of publishers move off Apple en masse, although it would still take quite a while for that to bite unless consumers really get a strop on.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 17, 2011)

Global Stoner said:


> My mate put stickers all over his MacBook Pro to avoid this.


 
Seriously, no way I'm paying a grand for a computer than slapping stickers all over it!


----------



## Hocus Eye. (Feb 17, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Seriously, no way I'm paying a grand for a computer than slapping stickers all over it!


 No it would be much better to cut out a small mask of a different shaped image and glue it over the apple. It would baffle observers into thinking you had something they had never heard of.

Black though, I can't believe anyone is still sporting a black laptop this year. I am sure Gok Wan would have something to say about that.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 17, 2011)

Hocus Eye. said:


> No it would be much better to cut out a small mask of a different shaped image and glue it over the apple. It would baffle observers into thinking you had something they had never heard of.
> 
> Black though, I can't believe anyone is still sporting a black laptop this year. I am sure Gok Wan would have something to say about that.


 
Heh yeah a Nike swoosh would work well and throw people.


----------



## Hocus Eye. (Feb 17, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Heh yeah a Nike swoosh would work well and throw people.



The Nike swoosh has been itself 'subvertised'







End of Derail


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 17, 2011)

It's not a derail, we're talking about general news about an Apple product.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 18, 2011)

Crispy said:


> If things continue as they have done, I fully expect some sort of anti-trust lawsuit against apple that will force them to open the app store up


 
It isn't an anti-trust issue. People say this every time Apple does anything, and nothing ever happens. They said it about the iTunes store, about every move they made with the phone... it's just other companies talking tough and analysts talking the usual bollocks.


----------



## editor (Feb 18, 2011)

The anti trust issue isn't going away any time soon:



> U.S. antitrust enforcers have begun looking at the terms Apple Inc. set this week for media companies who want to sell their content on its popular iPad and other devices, according to people familiar with the matter.
> 
> The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission's interest in Apple's new subscription service is at a preliminary stage, and might not develop into either a formal investigation or any action against the company. But it comes as Apple has attracted growing antitrust scrutiny in the U.S. and Europe.
> 
> ...


It seems to hit music services hardest:



> Online music companies said Apple's 30% commission would cut too deeply into their profit margins. The rate "is so obviously anticompetitive that it will never survive in Europe," said Axel Dauchez, the president of Deezer, a French company that sells subscriptions to its digital music library of 10 million songs.
> 
> Jon Irwin, the president of Rhapsody International Inc., which sells online music subscriptions through apps on Apple and other mobile devices, said his company would be squeezed by having to pay royalties to the owners of the music it sells online as well as a 30% cut to Apple. "The costs don't leave any room for a sensible business model," he said.


----------



## editor (Feb 18, 2011)

Looks like Apple might be in for a bumpy ride pushing through this hefty 30% levy and it's going to royally fuck up some music streaming services


> Pressure is mounting on Apple over subscription charges it plans to levy on some mobile content.
> 
> The company wants a 30% cut of payments for newspapers and other publications downloaded to its devices.
> 
> ...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 18, 2011)

The anti-trust thing is a red herring. Regulators look at that sort of issue, particularly if people make a fuss, but Apple doesn't have monopolies on music sales or phone sales or phone ecosystems etc. It's been tried before over iTunes pricing and nothing happened. (Sharing of board members between Apple and Google might have been problematic though - they headed that one off of course with Eric Schmidt resigning from Apple's board, not that that really made a practical difference....)

If anything happens it will come from publishers making a fuss and threatening, credibly, to withdraw their products. I'm not sure there's the general will but there may be. Apple might introduce "special circumstance" deals for certain types of subscriptions. But as I said before, it's a huge loophole in the App Store purchasing model, allowing people to buy functionality for apps without paying a cut to Apple, and if they don't do something everyone will be offering free apps that get unlocked by subscriptions outside of the App Store. That's what this is aimed at.


----------



## sim667 (Feb 19, 2011)

Global Stoner said:


> My mate put stickers all over his MacBook Pro to avoid this.


----------



## grit (Feb 19, 2011)

editor said:


> Looks like Apple might be in for a bumpy ride pushing through this hefty 30% levy and it's going to royally fuck up some music streaming services


 
Its funny that the publishing industry is getting upset with Apple using their own tactics against them


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 19, 2011)

grit said:


> Its funny that the publishing industry is getting upset with Apple using their own tactics against them


 
Have to say don't really have much sympathy for them either, so Apple aint nice big deal, the music industry etc have been fucking people over for years and it's amusing to see this happening to them in a sense!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 19, 2011)

sim667 said:


>


 
Haha that's wicked!


----------



## editor (Feb 19, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Have to say don't really have much sympathy for them either, so Apple aint nice big deal, the music industry etc have been fucking people over for years and it's amusing to see this happening to them in a sense!


The cash models of most music streaming apps are absolutely _microscopic_ compared to record companies so I'm not sure why you should be 'amused' to see them have to struggle thanks to Apple's greed. I'd hate to see the likes of Last.FM, Spotify etc go under because of this.


----------



## grit (Feb 19, 2011)

editor said:


> The cash models of most music streaming apps are absolutely _microscopic_ compared to record companies so I'm not sure why you should be 'amused' to see them have to struggle thanks to Apple's greed. I'd hate to see the likes of Last.FM, Spotify etc go under because of this.


 
We need way more information regarding exactly whats being banned, from what I've read so far I can think of several methods where apple would not be entitled to a 30% cut of subscription revenue.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 20, 2011)

editor said:


> The cash models of most music streaming apps are absolutely _microscopic_ compared to record companies so I'm not sure why you should be 'amused' to see them have to struggle thanks to Apple's greed. I'd hate to see the likes of Last.FM, Spotify etc go under because of this.



Lol yet more goal post moving eh Ed? The music industry is controlled by huge corporations, why you have sympathy for them is beyond me.


----------



## editor (Feb 20, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Lol yet more goal post moving eh Ed? The music industry is controlled by huge corporations, why you have sympathy for them is beyond me.


Er? Hello? Are Rhapsody, Last.FM and Pandora a "huge corporations" then?

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-ne...ption-policy-convinced-me-to-sell-my-ipad/957

Discussion:


> This is why Apple’s subscription system fails for consumers
> http://www.technovia.co.uk/2011/02/this-is-why-apples-subscription-system-fails-for-consumers.html





> Steve Jobs Doesn’t Want to Kill Publishers, But Apple’s Subscription Strategy*Will
> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/19/apple-kill-publishers/





> Apple's taking 30 percent of app store subscriptions is an unkind cut
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021902399.html


----------



## grit (Feb 20, 2011)

editor said:


> Er? Hello? Are Rhapsody, Last.FM and Pandora a "huge corporations" then?
> 
> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-ne...ption-policy-convinced-me-to-sell-my-ipad/957
> 
> Discussion:


 
Last.fm is a "huge corporation" (CBS)


----------



## editor (Feb 20, 2011)

grit said:


> Last.fm is a "huge corporation" (CBS)


I'd forgotten that they'd flogged it off. But there are plenty of small publishers and streaming app providers who I imagine have good reason to be very concerned about Apple's moves. This is quite a good piece: http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...ve-with-apple-over-subscription-policy/71462/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 20, 2011)

editor said:


> Er? Hello? Are Rhapsody, Last.FM and Pandora a "huge corporations" then?
> 
> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-ne...ption-policy-convinced-me-to-sell-my-ipad/957
> 
> Discussion:


 
Yeah I forgot Usher is signed to Spotify and Kanye West has a new album courtesy of Last fm. Heh.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 20, 2011)

grit said:


> Last.fm is a "huge corporation" (CBS)


 
Ed loves some corporations but not others is hardly news...


----------



## editor (Feb 20, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Ed loves some corporations but not others is hardly news...


I don't "love" any corporations and I certainly don't forgive money-grubbing practices from immensely rich corporates because their products are, like, _well cool and shiny and t'ing._


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 20, 2011)

As a comparison, incidentally, Amazon take a cut of *65%* for things they sell for Kindle, though they are now it seems reducing that to 30% (wonder where that figure arrived from?) http://www.crn.com/news/channel-pro...-pot-increases-royalties-for-kindle-books.htm They take a lot more for physical books, though you'd expect some difference there.


----------



## grit (Feb 20, 2011)

editor said:


> I don't "love" any corporations and I certainly don't forgive money-grubbing practices from immensely rich corporates because their products are, like, _well cool and shiny and t'ing._


 
There is a remarkable inconsistency in the targets of your support.


----------



## editor (Feb 20, 2011)

grit said:


> There is a remarkable inconsistency in the targets of your support.


Who am I "supporting" here? I'm happy to voice my dissatisfaction with what I feel is a dubious practice from _any_ corporation and don't have any of this weird brand fan loyalty that some seem to have. That's why in the last 18 months I've had phones from Apple, HTC, Google and Palm.

Of course, it makes sense to make more noise against the largest and wealthiest corporates because they have the biggest PR budgets. And, in this case, this is a thread about Apple.


----------



## paolo (Feb 20, 2011)

Google's UK tax payments make for interesting reading.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6962880.ece


----------



## editor (Feb 20, 2011)

paolo999 said:


> Google's UK tax payments make for interesting reading.
> 
> http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6962880.ece


The cocks. Got anything more up to date than 2009 though?


----------



## Lazy Llama (Feb 20, 2011)

> The internet giant's annual revenues from the UK, its biggest operation outside the US, rose 10% in dollar terms to $3.33 billion. But using an average sterling exchange rate of $1.5457, London saw turnover rise 13%. Critics complain Google, which generates most of its revenue from advertising, pays little UK corporation tax and is undermining Britain's creative industries.
> 
> ... Luke Johnson, former Channel 4 chairman, said today: "I think Google is only leeching from Britain. Paying just 2.5% corporation tax on their overseas earnings surely has the risk to damage their reputation.


http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...larry-page-to-take-over-as-chief-executive.do from 21st Jan 2011

I believe that HP, Intel and Microsoft all do similar things, though I can't say for sure. 
And from what I can tell, Apple do too. (article from 2006)


----------



## editor (Feb 21, 2011)

Interesting piece in the Guardian about the subscription model:


> Apple's new terms of service dictated that the company keeps 30% of revenue from the growing number of publishers in its App Store, including the New York Times, Daily Telegraph, and the Guardian. Publishers can set the price and duration of a subscription, but they are not permitted to offer cheaper deals outside Apple's walled garden. On top of that, all the lucrative customer information stays with Apple.
> 
> Google's One Pass, by contrast, allows publishers to charge for as much or as little content as they wish, on mobiles, online, and on tablet computers. Set clearly in opposition to Apple's monolithic approach, Google allows publishers to set their own payment plan, keep 90% of*the revenue, and all of the lucrative customer information.
> 
> ...


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2011/feb/21/apple-newspaper-app-subscriptions


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 21, 2011)

*iPhone 6 or iPad 3 to come with 6-inch screen?  Read more: http://www.techradar.com/n*

I swear journos are just sitting there now making up any old thing that makes good copy:



> Apple is said to be working on a 6-inch device to sit somewhere between the current iPhone and iPad ranges.
> 
> A "connected industry expert" has told AppleInsider that Apple intends to widen its range with a device that sits somewhere between the iPhone and the iPad size-wise, with a 6-inch display.
> 
> The mystery 6-incher could be the iPad 3, which has been speculated to launch later this year, or the iPhone 6, dwarfing the current iPhone 4's 3.5-inch display.


----------



## Crispy (Feb 21, 2011)

They've been mulling such a thing for ages. Whether it'll actually appear as a product is unknown


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 21, 2011)

Crispy said:


> They've been mulling such a thing for ages. Whether it'll actually appear as a product is unknown


 
Yeah I guess, makes sense really, why wouldn't a company test all kinds of things internally? But still can't help but feel some of these journos get a tad over excited about this type of thing...


----------



## editor (Feb 21, 2011)

Crispy said:


> They've been mulling such a thing for ages. Whether it'll actually appear as a product is unknown


I think HP/webOS are on to something with their integrated phone/tablet idea, although it's not quite there yet. Maybe that's the direction Apple will be taking it.


----------



## grit (Feb 21, 2011)

editor said:


> Who am I "supporting" here? I'm happy to voice my dissatisfaction with what I feel is a dubious practice from _any_ corporation and don't have any of this weird brand fan loyalty that some seem to have. That's why in the last 18 months I've had phones from Apple, HTC, Google and Palm.
> 
> Of course, it makes sense to make more noise against the largest and wealthiest corporates because they have the biggest PR budgets. And, in this case, this is a thread about Apple.



Well in reality you are complaining about one big corporation ripping off another.


----------



## editor (Feb 21, 2011)

grit said:


> Well in reality you are complaining about one big corporation ripping off another.


How about you stick to talking about Apple new product rumours and general news?


----------



## grit (Feb 21, 2011)

editor said:


> How about you stick to talking about Apple new product rumours and general news?



Just responding to your question


----------



## editor (Feb 21, 2011)

More proof that it won't just be 'huge corporations' being hit by the subscription model: 


> Readability, a service which takes text on the web and strips out ads and other distractions to make posts more readable, had been planning to bring an app to the iOS platform. In fact, they worked with Instapaper creator Marco Arment to build it. It seems like it would be been a pretty popular app. Except it was rejected on the grounds that it circumvents Apples in-app subscriptions today.
> 
> Readability details the rejection and their feeling on it on their blog today (which is down at the moment). But let’s just say they’re not happy. The point of Readability is to give the majority of the earnings (70 percent) back to publishers. If Apple is taking a 30 percent cut, the service will either have to cut those payouts to 40 percent, or cut their own take down to 10 percent — neither of which they want to or are willing to do.
> 
> ...



Open letter to Apple from the devs:
http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/


----------



## grit (Feb 21, 2011)

editor said:


> More proof that it won't just be 'huge corporations' being hit by the subscription model:
> 
> 
> Open letter to Apple from the devs:
> http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/



Would be interesting to get responses from content creators about how they feel about their stuff being redistributed.


----------



## editor (Feb 21, 2011)

grit said:


> Would be interesting to get responses from content creators about how they feel about their stuff being redistributed.


Quite happy, I imagine. 

https://www.readability.com/publishers


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 21, 2011)

Crispy said:


> They've been mulling such a thing for ages. Whether it'll actually appear as a product is unknown


 
Not for a long time, if ever. Tech journos seem to forget that it's not as easy as just making a thing with a different sized screen and putting it on sale.


----------



## grit (Feb 21, 2011)

editor said:


> Quite happy, I imagine.
> 
> https://www.readability.com/publishers


 
Thats what I read that left so many questions, whats described on that site doesnt appear feasible at all. As a publisher you have to know about them and sign up. This leaves a huge hole in the royalties that should be paid, not to mention the TOSs it probably breaks.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 21, 2011)

editor said:


> I think HP/webOS are on to something with their integrated phone/tablet idea, although it's not quite there yet. Maybe that's the direction Apple will be taking it.


 
That would be neat, HP have some nice tech there, hopefully it will be well and truly ripped off by Apple before it sinks without a trace into gadget history...


----------



## editor (Feb 21, 2011)

grit said:


> Thats what I read that left so many questions, whats described on that site doesnt appear feasible at all. As a publisher you have to know about them and sign up. This leaves a huge hole in the royalties that should be paid, not to mention the TOSs it probably breaks.


Which TOS, specifically?


----------



## grit (Feb 21, 2011)

editor said:


> Which TOS, specifically?


 
Sites that it is parsing the content from. The whole model seems very sneaky, "uh well we will pay you if you come looking", do not like.


----------



## editor (Feb 21, 2011)

grit said:


> Sites that it is parsing the content from.


So you're against Instapaper too, and all those other useful apps that let you read content later?


----------



## grit (Feb 21, 2011)

editor said:


> So you're against Instapaper too, and all those other useful apps that let you read content later?


 
When I used instapaper it didnt cost anything, I dont know if that has changed.

 what I'm against is someone profiting off another's work.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 21, 2011)

*I Hate My iPad*

What a tool, talk about a fool and his money being easily parted. Not sure how stupid you have to be to spend 600 quid on something just because your mates have it AND not spending any time trying theirs out before handing over your cash! 



> I admit that I bought my iPad for the wrong reasons. I got one because it seemed like everyone I knew had gotten one for Christmas and, well, I felt left out. I didn't think about how it would fit in with the gadgets I already owned (laptop, Kindle, iPhone), and I didn't borrow a friend's and take it on a test drive. Now I just feel annoyed, having spent $600 on a device that hasn't done anything to improve my life. A salad spinner would have been a better investment, and I don't even eat that much salad.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> What a tool, talk about a fool and his money being easily parted. Not sure how stupid you have to be to spend 600 quid on something just because your mates have it AND not spending any time trying theirs out before handing over your cash!


It's an interesting talking point for an article though. 



> For work, however, the iPad is not just bad, it represents a net reduction in productivity. One of the great things about the new Web is that you can manipulate text, but the iPad treats you like a child. (Not unlike the way iTunes treats you like a child with your own music.) I can't copy text out of the New York Times app or the Washington Post app or most other apps for that matter. Doing it from a Web page on Safari takes about the time required to make a cup of tea. I feel like I spend all my time poking at the screen trying to get the little blue box to behave. It's like I'm on an endless search for a button in the sewing box.


----------



## Kanda (Feb 22, 2011)

Rumour is that two unannounced products (iPhone 5/iPad 2) are delayed...


----------



## stupid dogbot (Feb 22, 2011)

editor said:


> It's an interesting talking point for an article though.


 
Well, perhaps if he'd _tried it_ before he _bought it_, he'd have known those things!


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2011)

Curse those rumours of rumoured delays to rumoured products.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 22, 2011)

Kanda said:


> Rumour is that two unannounced products (iPhone 5/iPad 2) are delayed...



Another day, another amusing Apple rumour, it's the company that just keeps on giving!



stupid dogbot said:


> Well, perhaps if he'd _tried it_ before he _bought it_, he'd have known those things!


 
Aint that the truth, the guy's a fucking idiot.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2011)

Great news! A Reuters source has refuted the rumours of rumoured delays to rumoured products.
http://www.bgr.com/2011/02/22/reuters-source-refutes-delay-of-apples-ipad-2-iphone-5/


----------



## Lazy Llama (Feb 22, 2011)

editor said:


> Great news! A Reuters source has refuted the rumours of rumoured delays to rumoured products.
> http://www.bgr.com/2011/02/22/reuters-source-refutes-delay-of-apples-ipad-2-iphone-5/


That refutation is only rumoured though.....


----------



## Hocus Eye. (Feb 22, 2011)

Here are further sources for these rumours:-

http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...ments-may-be-delayed-yuanta-analysts-say.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-5-september-2011-2

I wonder if this may also have something to do with 4G not really being 4G and they are going to work on it some more.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 22, 2011)

Lazy Llama said:


> That refutation is only rumoured though.....


 




Hocus Eye. said:


> Here are further sources for these rumours:-
> 
> http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...ments-may-be-delayed-yuanta-analysts-say.html
> 
> ...



Who knows...like I've said before it's interesting there's been a deluge of Apple rumours so soon after lots of Android devices were getting so much press love...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 22, 2011)




----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 22, 2011)

Apple holding an event on March 2nd, iPad 2 announcement?


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2011)

OMG! An _event_, you say?!

That's reason enough to unleash at least five more rumours!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 22, 2011)

editor said:


> OMG! An _event_, you say?!
> 
> That's reason enough to unleash at least five more rumours!


 
No way man, it's all about the rumour round up now dude!


----------



## stupid dogbot (Feb 22, 2011)

editor said:


> OMG! An _event_, you say?!
> 
> That's reason enough to unleash at least five more rumours!


 
Just 5?


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> No way man, it's all about the rumour round up now dude!


I'm going to write a piss taking piece about it tomorrow, I reckon.

Because reading through RSS/Twitter newsfeeds is part of my job, I can't tell you how fed up I am having to flick past endless made-up bullshit stories about Apple's new whatever. I don't understand why people are so fascinated when its obvious the source hasn't a fucking clue.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 22, 2011)

editor said:


> I'm going to write a piss taking piece about it tomorrow, I reckon.
> 
> Because reading through RSS/Twitter newsfeeds is part of my job, I can't tell you how fed up I am having to flick past endless made-up bullshit stories about Apple's new whatever. I don't understand why people are so fascinated when its obvious the source hasn't a fucking clue.


 
Heh go for it, at least it will give the excellent Wirefresh a nice bump in traffic! I find it amusing, it's almost a spectator sport now...


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Heh go for it, at least it will give the excellent Wirefresh a nice bump in traffic! I find it amusing, it's almost a spectator sport now...


Some sites are busy speculating about the iPad3 and iPhone6.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2011)

Engadget have announced their Readers Choice awards 2010.
Not surprisingly, Apple has won just about everything. Actually, I tell a lie. Just one of their products did in fact fail to win and that was the Apple Magic Trackpad.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/22/the-winners-of-the-2010-engadget-awards-readers-choice/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 22, 2011)

Mashable has a good guide to the various stages of Apple rumouring.


----------



## hendo (Feb 22, 2011)

Are we going to have a new thread for the ipad2?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 22, 2011)

hendo said:


> Are we going to have a new thread for the ipad2?


 
I guess so...


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2011)

hendo said:


> Are we going to have a new thread for the ipad2?


Only if it introduces itself by running along the server being high fived by whooping Ethernet cables.


----------



## Callum91 (Feb 23, 2011)

editor said:


> Only if it introduces itself by running along the server being high fived by whooping Ethernet cables.


 
 I'd pay to see that.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Feb 23, 2011)

editor said:


> Only if it introduces itself by running along the server being high fived by whooping Ethernet cables.


 
Ethernet cables don't have fingers, so their giving 5 may be difficult...


----------



## editor (Feb 23, 2011)

I've just posted up the real inside story behind the latest rumours: http://www.wirefresh.com/omg-white-hot-apple-iphone5-and-ipad2-news/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 23, 2011)

So the new rumour is er faster data transfer and calling Intels Light Peak 'Thunderbolt' (seriously who comes up with these stupid names?)...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 23, 2011)

The March 2nd event invites are out, leaving little or no doubt it's about the iPad 2...


----------



## stupid dogbot (Feb 23, 2011)

It is, apparently:

http://mashable.com/2011/02/23/ipad-2-event-confirmed/


----------



## editor (Feb 23, 2011)

Thank goodness there's an iPad 2 rumour guide online:
http://mashable.com/2010/12/28/ipad-2-rumors-the-comprehensive-guide/


----------



## stupid dogbot (Feb 23, 2011)

It's a bit like this thread, really...


----------



## Echo Base (Feb 23, 2011)

Those twats. Ive only had my iPad since the Summer now they want more money out of me.


----------



## Kanda (Feb 23, 2011)

Echo Base said:


> Those twats. Ive only had my iPad since the Summer now they want more money out of me.


 
a) They pretty much always do annual product refreshes.
b) You don't HAVE to buy it.


----------



## Echo Base (Feb 23, 2011)

kanda said:


> b) you don't have to buy it.



yesidoyesidoyesido


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 23, 2011)

stupid dogbot said:


> It's a bit like this thread, really...


 
This thread pwns, without doubt one of the most amusing on urban!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 23, 2011)

It'll follow the same pattern as the iPhone. You never _need_ to buy the model after yours - if you feel flush maybe but nothing about it makes yours obsolete. After two revisions, yours might sometimes lag a little with the latest software, but not so much that that it's unusable and you feel aggrieved, more "well this still works fine but, hmm, I wouldn't mind the latest flashy one, and my birthday's soon".

This is the same with all Apple product lines - they're always updated in a controlled manner with back-compatibility. The switch to Intel was the most major jump and even now people are still using PPC macs.


----------



## editor (Feb 23, 2011)

This article actually has _no substance whatsoever_. 
http://www.bgr.com/2011/02/23/ipad-2-could-be-in-short-supply-at-launch/


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 23, 2011)

There are definitely bots generating all of these obscure mobile/gadget/tech blogs and populating them with rumour articles. Or if there aren't, maybe I could make some money writing one.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 23, 2011)

Looks like the rumours have got a little bit more interesting with there being photos of a the new so called thunderbolt port on a MBP. If these are real it means the MBP range looks to be keeping the disc drive going by its thickness.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 23, 2011)




----------



## spitfire (Feb 23, 2011)

That's a mini display port with a thunderbolt decal in my eyes.


----------



## Crispy (Feb 23, 2011)

It looks they've combined the spec for thunderbolt and mini displayport sockets. If the hardware spec allows for the same chips to route generic IO _and_ raw display data in the displayport format, then we could end up seeing this port as the _only_ port design on the computers, instead of the current menagerie.

It's not quite so incredible when you think about it - the DisplayPort standard is for moving data around at 10s of Gbps. Light Peak is also a standard for moving data around at similar speeds. Maybe Intel has created an IO chip that can do both, to the same socket.


----------



## spitfire (Feb 23, 2011)

Christ, we have enough difficulties with the MDP as it is.

Maybe this could be the new thing on iPad 2? Which would give it a HD output. Apple are big on HD.


----------



## Crispy (Feb 23, 2011)

It's part of the VESA standard now and the license is free.

It'd have a tough fight against USB3 of course - crucially backwards compatible


----------



## spitfire (Feb 23, 2011)

As far as IO compatability goes for sure. But the future for display is Display Port/MDP. All chip sets for Intel and AMD will soon be shipped with Display Port capability. And as you say, no licence a la HDMI.

It's a trade off and one that would seemingly make sense in the long run.

Also most Apple users already have MDP dongles ready to use. Then it would be a matter of time for the IO stuff.


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 24, 2011)

hmmm I wonder what that'll be... then...


----------



## Crispy (Feb 24, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> hmmm I wonder what that'll be... then...


 
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/th...neral-news?p=11543475&viewfull=1#post11543475


----------



## sim667 (Feb 24, 2011)

Well Ive had my ipad 4 months now, and i really dont see that there'll be anything on the new one that desperately makes me want to rush out and buy a new one...... Considering I got mine brand new for £330, i dont feel hard done by either...... My first iPod was £340 for a 40GB one


----------



## Kanda (Feb 24, 2011)

spitfire said:


> Maybe this could be the new thing on iPad 2? Which would give it a HD output. Apple are big on HD.


 
They aren't that big on HD at all. They don't even do full HD on Apple TV.


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 24, 2011)

Ipad3 slated for announcement in sept 2011 will be full HD... 

Which begs the question really...

If the Ipad is the iphone 3 and the ipad 2 is the 3gs then why wouldn't we wait for the ipad 3 (phone 4) which is going to be announced at the end of the year?

who the hell will buy summit which they know will be trumphed within 6 months by one which actually works as expected, and needed....

Equally as the Iphone 4 is a great gadget but a shite phone (don't argue this is the absolute empirical truth; no discussions) then won't the ipad 3 be the one to have....

In which case those of us who had been waiting for the 2 are going to wait a bit logner for the 3 and buy an ipad 1 second hand for about half the current price if not less in the mean time... why the hell wouldn't you??


----------



## Kanda (Feb 24, 2011)

This is fact is it Garf??

Sounds like another silly rumour.


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 24, 2011)

Kanda said:


> This is fact is it Garf??
> 
> Sounds like another silly rumour.


 
who knows with apple...

but what is certain is they have ordered some ipad hd screens/ beefier graphics cpus which are due to ship to them later in the year and they have reduced the number of units they are intending to produce of the ipad 2 significantly which implies that the rumour has some weight...


----------



## elbows (Feb 24, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> Ipad3 slated for announcement in sept 2011 will be full HD...
> 
> Which begs the question really...
> 
> If the Ipad is the iphone 3 and the ipad 2 is the 3gs then why wouldn't we wait for the ipad 3 (phone 4) which is going to be announced at the end of the year?


 
If all this stuff is true then its quite possible that the ipad 3 will cost more, and so the ipad 2 will remain as a 'budget' option.


----------



## sim667 (Feb 24, 2011)

elbows said:


> If all this stuff is true then its quite possible that the ipad 3 will cost more, and so the ipad 2 will remain as a 'budget' option.


 
Yeah, but its more likely than not, bullshit.


----------



## spitfire (Feb 24, 2011)

Kanda said:


> They aren't that big on HD at all. They don't even do full HD on Apple TV.


 
i've just checked my Apple TV and it is outputting 1080P. It's the old style silver one, not sure about the new one.


----------



## Kanda (Feb 24, 2011)

Store is down. New MacBooks today.

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/24...ros-with-thunderbolt-quad-core-cpus-amd-gpus/


----------



## Kanda (Feb 24, 2011)

spitfire said:


> i've just checked my Apple TV and it is outputting 1080P. It's the old style silver one, not sure about the new one.


 
Really? You sure about that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleTV#Technical_specifications

Also from that page:



> Apple TV cannot play 1080i or 1080p HD content (e.g., HD camera video) unless it is converted to a lower-resolution format


----------



## editor (Feb 24, 2011)

Kanda said:


> Store is down. New MacBooks today.
> 
> http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/24...ros-with-thunderbolt-quad-core-cpus-amd-gpus/


Apple: the only technology company on the planet that has to take down their entire store for a minor product refresh.


----------



## editor (Feb 24, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> who knows with apple...
> 
> but what is certain is they have ordered some ipad hd screens/ beefier graphics cpus which are due to ship to them later in the year and they have reduced the number of units they are intending to produce of the ipad 2 significantly which implies that the rumour has some weight...


All made up bollocks for now:



> Apple has *allegedly* reduced the number of iPad 2s it wants its contract manufacturer to churn out. *If true*...


----------



## spitfire (Feb 24, 2011)

Kanda said:


> Really? You sure about that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleTV#Technical_specifications
> 
> Also from that page:


 
I'm positive that's what it says on the menu when i checked 10 minutes ago. I'm afraid i don't have time to be putting up pics. sorry.


----------



## Kanda (Feb 24, 2011)

editor said:


> Apple: the only technology company on the planet that has to take down their entire store for a minor product refresh.


 
You point this out every time they do so


----------



## Kanda (Feb 24, 2011)

spitfire said:


> I'm positive that's what it says on the menu when i checked 10 minutes ago. I'm afraid i don't have time to be putting up pics. sorry.


 
I have the same model as you. Will check tonight...


----------



## stupid dogbot (Feb 24, 2011)

editor said:


> Apple: the only technology company on the planet that has to take down their entire store for a minor product refresh.


 
Editor: The only person on the planet bothered by this.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 24, 2011)

editor said:


> Apple: the only technology company on the planet that has to take down their entire store for a minor product refresh.


 
They don't have to, they know that you and every other tech pundit will have something to say about it if they do.


----------



## spitfire (Feb 24, 2011)

Kanda said:


> I have the same model as you. Will check tonight...


 
Let me know the results. Maybe it just can't process HD camera stuff? I'm pretty sure it can do 1080p films.

HD is a fickle mistress and creates problems for me every day.


----------



## sim667 (Feb 24, 2011)

They've announced osx lion on the website. I would post a link but this thread is blocked at work because you're all 'offensive and tasteless'


----------



## stupid dogbot (Feb 24, 2011)

I'm fucked if I'm paying for Lion, having only bought the machine a few months ago. They can keep their stupid wanky desktop app store and other _deeply exciting_ stuff.


----------



## editor (Feb 24, 2011)

stupid dogbot said:


> Editor: The only person on the planet bothered by this.


I'm not 'bothered' by it at all. In fact, I find the hysteria that gets unleashed whenever that stupid sticky goes up _highly_ amusing.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Feb 24, 2011)

Yeah, you always sound really _amused_.


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 24, 2011)

editor said:


> All made up bollocks for now:


 
thanks for the patently obvious I'm guessing the who knows with apple comment might have covered that...


----------



## sim667 (Feb 24, 2011)

I'll contemplate the upgrade if it's the same price as snow leopard was (£26)

I want to see that it's got all problems ironed out first

Annoyingly I did my ACSP at Xmas for 10.6


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 24, 2011)

So the 13 inc MBP gets a bump in specs, better camera, better SD card reader and loses 3 hours off the top end of battery life?


----------



## editor (Feb 24, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> thanks for the patently obvious I'm guessing the who knows with apple comment might have covered that...


You were the one claiming that is was "certain" that they had "reduced the number of [iPad] units they are intending to produce." That is incorrect. It is not certain at all.


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 24, 2011)

editor said:


> You were the one claiming that is was "certain" that they had "reduced the number of [iPad] units they are intending to produce." That is incorrect. It is not certain at all.


 
whateva... talk to my ass...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 24, 2011)

LOL! I guess that's one way to retort...


----------



## editor (Feb 24, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> whateva... talk to my ass...


That's one way of saying, "sorry I got it wrong", I guess!



Anyway, back on topic, Apple have announced that they will be charging for the FaceTime app in the Mac App Store.

They're only charging a dollar, but it still seems a bit, well, greedy and a little daft seeing as Skype is free. 

Read the user comments here: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/apple-facetime-for-mac-finally-out-of-beta-available-on-the-mac/


http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/facetime/id414307850?mt=12


----------



## Crispy (Feb 24, 2011)

Very daft, esp when it comes bundled on iphone and it's competitors are free


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 24, 2011)

editor said:


> That's one way of saying, "sorry I got it wrong", I guess!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
no actually it's a way of saying fuck it I'm not ever going to discuss apple products with you any more than I'd discuss homosexuality rights with a fundamentalist xtian.  It's fucking pointless, get's both sides very angery at the moronic comments of the other side and leads to bad blood.

It's not a topic you and I (and observationally you and any one else in the entire universe) can discuss at any rational level.

So there's no point in doing so at all...

so whateva...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 24, 2011)

editor said:


> That's one way of saying, "sorry I got it wrong", I guess!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah 59p...still cheaper than a packet of chips so hardly the end of the world...


----------



## stupid dogbot (Feb 24, 2011)

sim667 said:


> I'll contemplate the upgrade if it's the same price as snow leopard was (£26)
> 
> I want to see that it's got all problems ironed out first
> 
> Annoyingly I did my ACSP at Xmas for 10.6



I'm not even paying that, tbh.


----------



## Kanda (Feb 24, 2011)

editor said:


> That's one way of saying, "sorry I got it wrong", I guess!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Here's the reason why: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/24/apples-0-99-facetime-charge-due-to-accounting-requirements/

Accounting requirements. I seem to remember something cropping up about this before, maybe not with Apple...


----------



## editor (Feb 24, 2011)

Kanda said:


> Here's the reason why: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/24/apples-0-99-facetime-charge-due-to-accounting-requirements/
> 
> Accounting requirements. I seem to remember something cropping up about this before, maybe not with Apple...


I'm not sure I'd describe the app as a "substantial new feature addition."


----------



## stupid dogbot (Feb 24, 2011)

I'd imagine the reasons are:

a) They want the money
b) They can


----------



## editor (Feb 24, 2011)

stupid dogbot said:


> I'd imagine the reasons are:
> 
> a) They want the money
> b) They can


and
c) people will happily give them their money


----------



## grit (Feb 24, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> They don't have to, they know that you and every other tech pundit will have something to say about it if they do.


 
Aye, its a marketing thing.


----------



## tarannau (Feb 24, 2011)

Cripes. Even I'm not going to quibble with a quid for a decent app, especially if I was so minded to buy an expensive smartphone.


----------



## magneze (Feb 24, 2011)

Kanda said:


> Here's the reason why: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/24/apples-0-99-facetime-charge-due-to-accounting-requirements/
> 
> Accounting requirements. I seem to remember something cropping up about this before, maybe not with Apple...


Cooking the books eh. Dodgy.


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 24, 2011)

editor said:


> and
> c) people will happily give them their money


 
d) it keeps pundits talking about them some more giving them free publicity...


----------



## maldwyn (Feb 24, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> Which begs the question really...who the hell will buy summit which they know will be trumphed within 6 months


Geeks like us know, but I doubt Joe Public really care enough to do the research.

I've been waiting for iPad 3 (or 4) since its existence was announced.


----------



## maldwyn (Feb 24, 2011)

Happy Birthday Steve Jobs - would this and the MacBookPro refresh be connected?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 24, 2011)

The Pros look nice. I've discovered that I don't actually have a use for a high-powered laptop like that, but if I did....


----------



## editor (Feb 24, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> The Pros look nice. I've discovered that I don't actually have a use for a high-powered laptop like that, but if I did....


They're really lovely looking machines but there's no way on earth I could justify their lofty price tags.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 24, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> The Pros look nice. I've discovered that I don't actually have a use for a high-powered laptop like that, but if I did....


 
Having only bought a MBP last June I think I'll give it a miss...for another three years.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Feb 25, 2011)

editor said:


> and
> c) people will happily give them their money


 
Indeed - I always forget c)!


----------



## Sunray (Feb 25, 2011)

editor said:


> They're really lovely looking machines but there's no way on earth I could justify their lofty price tags.


 
Its not quite as 'lofty' as you may think. My PC for work is a Dell M6500,  to match it, you would need the core i7 version at 2300 ex vat.

http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/bus...refid=precision-m6500&s=bsd&cs=ukbsdt1&~ck=mn

I'd say that the Apple MBP is a nicer bit of kit with its unibody design.  The dell is a behemoth.


----------



## stupid dogbot (Feb 25, 2011)

I bought the i7 MBP, it comfortably outperforms both my mate's work HP and Dell laptops which are top speccd, and not that far short cost-wise.

And yeah, it's a far nicer design.


----------



## kyser_soze (Feb 25, 2011)

iPhone barricades itself in motel with drugs and whores


----------



## Crispy (Feb 25, 2011)

There's no 'cheap' mac laptop though. Even the plastic macbook (soon to be discontinued I reckon) _starts_ at £867


----------



## tarannau (Feb 25, 2011)

The MBP is bloody expensive, but they are lovely machines. Similar build quality tends to lead to equally high costs on the pc side, albeit the specs will lag a bit on the Macs a few months after releases like this.

I suspect that this new MBP range will be next laptop in a year or so, unless there's a more major redesign. That'll pension off my first gen MBP after 5 years or so. A bit like Fridge though, I'm beginning to think I really don't need the power anymore - even the Air's getting tempting the way things are going.


----------



## editor (Feb 25, 2011)

Sunray said:


> Its not quite as 'lofty' as you may think. My PC for work is a Dell M6500,  to match it, you would need the core i7 version at 2300 ex vat.


That's as maybe but you can't _seriously_ be suggesting that you can't get equally powerful PC laptops for less dosh, can you? You pay a premium for Apple's good looks and high quality finish, but you can definitely get the same sort of power for less - and some of those alternatives look every bit as nice as a MacBook to my eyes (but there again, I think ThinkPads look fabulous!).


----------



## Sunray (Feb 25, 2011)

You will be quite hard pushed to get an equivilant spec PC Laptop for much less and only the top brands really do that sort of laptop.

Equivilant Thinkpads are the W series, these start at 1300, http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...-category-id=85A8304A9EC14A9FB4600A56AAD72B1E

they have crappy integrated graphics less memory, the W701 is 2200.  The MBP and my Precision have fully fledged discrete graphics cards.  The Dell has a ATI FirePro M7820 with 1GB GDDR5 memory, I can run 3 x 24" monitors off it.   The MBP has both integrated and decent 3D as a power saving measure.

Acer can start to get close 
http://www.acerdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5943G_Windows_7_Laptop_LX.R6H02.006/version.asp  but its only got 15" display and doesn't have the CPU power.  Still 1300 quid.

Good look about and that top end is expensive and also really left to the big boys.  I'd not touch that Acer, I need total reliability for work.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 27, 2011)

*Is Ive on his way out?*



> Is Jonathan Ive, Apple‘s senior vice president of industrial design, packing his bags and moving back to the UK? Worse, did Apple tell him if he moves back to England he can’t keep working for Apple? That’s what the Times of London is reporting.
> 
> According to the Times (behind a paywall) and the Daily Mail, Ive received an option grant in 2008 that’s now worth $30 million, and if he sold that stock, his combined net worth would be $128 million. According to the report, the designer (called Jony Ive by his friends) has been “at loggerheads” with the Apple board about the amount of time he spends in the UK, where he would like for his two children to go to school.
> 
> According to the Times, an anonymous pal of Ives was quoted as saying, “unfortunately he is just too valuable to Apple and they told him in no uncertain terms that if he headed back to England he would not be able to sustain his position with them.”



Anon pal probably being him..?


----------



## Sunray (Feb 27, 2011)

That's not a logical statement.  If he's really valuable to you as a company then let him work where ever he likes.

Its a tech company, can work anywhere in the world. I can, I'm sure Mr Ives can too.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 27, 2011)

The Ive 2 will have an HDMI drive and a front-facing Flash port, though.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 27, 2011)

Sunray said:


> That's not a logical statement.  If he's really valuable to you as a company then let him work where ever he likes.
> 
> Its a tech company, can work anywhere in the world. I can, I'm sure Mr Ives can too.


 
Perhaps it's already a done deal but they're managing the press? With Jobs off, Ive going to work in England could look like Apple is losing it's key components of success, enough to make shareholders nervous...


----------



## Sunray (Feb 28, 2011)

They could just issue a press release saying he's still fully committed to Apple but is now working from home in England as he wants his children to go to school here?


----------



## editor (Feb 28, 2011)

To put a spin on it: might it be that Ives has declared that he wants to be CEO, and if he doesn't get the job he's off?

More conjecture here: http://www.macworld.co.uk/business/news/index.cfm?newsid=3262948&olo=rss


----------



## grit (Feb 28, 2011)

Sunray said:


> They could just issue a press release saying he's still fully committed to Apple but is now working from home in England as he wants his children to go to school here?


 
I dont think anyone would believe it.


----------



## spacemonkey (Feb 28, 2011)

I just noticed the 13-inch MBP has a lower resolution than the 13-inch Mac Book Air - why?


----------



## fen_boy (Feb 28, 2011)

spacemonkey said:


> I just noticed the 13-inch MBP has a lower resolution than the 13-inch Mac Book Air - why?


 
Obvious answer, but they're different displays. In the MBP 15" you can specify a high res option (like the Air), but you can't in the 13". I don't know why you can't specify a high res option in the 13" MBP.


----------



## fen_boy (Feb 28, 2011)

Could just be because they want you to spend more money on the Air. The Air has no backlit keyboard which for me would be a deal breaker. I can live without the higher resolution.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 28, 2011)

That is quite odd, but the Airs do have pretty high res screens for some reason. I'm typing this on my 11" which is 1366 x 768 - for an 11" screen that's quite a bit (I'm not vastly keen on the 16/9 ratio I have to say, it feels a bit shallow).


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 28, 2011)

More rumour mill goodness:

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/02/28/ipad_2_and_iphone_5_cases/


----------



## Crispy (Feb 28, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> That is quite odd, but the Airs do have pretty high res screens for some reason. I'm typing this on my 11" which is 1366 x 768 - for an 11" screen that's quite a bit (I'm not vastly keen on the 16/9 ratio I have to say, it feels a bit shallow).



Widescreen computer displays are crap for anything that's not watching movies. Major UI elements are horizontal - the dock/startbar, menubars, window titles, icon bars, status bars. On netbooks, you end up with a 400px actual working space height. Give me 4:3 every time


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 28, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Widescreen computer displays are crap for anything that's not watching movies. Major UI elements are horizontal - the dock/startbar, menubars, window titles, icon bars, status bars. On netbooks, you end up with a 400px actual working space height. Give me 4:3 every time


 
It's quite good for anything that has narrow windows, lots of panes/floating panels or splits naturally into two halves (like FTP apps). I split them up with Cinch and Divvy, so for instance I have Mail on the left side of the screen and Things on the right... or I have EagleFiler in most of the screen with its info panels occupying a quarter-width column on the right.

It's shit for browsing though. Half a screen is too small and the full screen too big. I might try Opera or something else that comes with a sidebar.


----------



## editor (Mar 1, 2011)

If anyone's looking at buying a MacBook, here's a handy comparison guide:

MacBook vs MacBook Pro vs MacBook Air
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/macbook-vs-macbook-pro-vs-macbook-air-932213


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 1, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Widescreen computer displays are crap for anything that's not watching movies.


 
Or music production - the wider the better for most sequencers. More space = more tracks on the mixer, larger arrangement area etc


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 1, 2011)

editor said:


> If anyone's looking at buying a MacBook, here's a handy comparison guide:
> 
> MacBook vs MacBook Pro vs MacBook Air
> http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/macbook-vs-macbook-pro-vs-macbook-air-932213


 


> The MacBook Air's solid state drives more than compensate for the comparatively slower processors: they have a dramatic effect on performance, making the Airs genuine flying machines.



This is definitely true, poor-quality "air/flying" pun apart. It really highlights how much of modern speed issues are down to drive speed bottlenecks rather than the processor. A 1.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo with SSD seems to regularly outperform a 2.something one without.


----------



## Throbbing Angel (Mar 1, 2011)

editor said:


> If anyone's looking at buying a MacBook, here's a handy comparison guide:
> 
> MacBook vs MacBook Pro vs MacBook Air
> http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/macbook-vs-macbook-pro-vs-macbook-air-932213



and to complement that, a similar comparison thingy on apples UK site
http://www.apple.com/uk/why-mac/compare/notebooks.html

I found this easier/simpler to read


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Mar 2, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Widescreen computer displays are crap for anything that's not watching movies. Major UI elements are horizontal - the dock/startbar, menubars, window titles, icon bars, status bars. On netbooks, you end up with a 400px actual working space height. Give me 4:3 every time



On larger screens its great for having two windows side by side....the windows 7 fast resize which takes up exactly half the screen makes this easier and I'm assuming they copied it from apple like most good stuff they have.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 2, 2011)

On large screens it's not an issue. I have a 21" screen and never maximise a window.

The split-pane in windows 7 is not an apple copy. MS actually have the lead when it comes to arranging windows on screen. OSX exposé is still miles better than alt-tab though.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 2, 2011)

Global Stoner said:


> On larger screens its great for having two windows side by side....the windows 7 fast resize which takes up exactly half the screen makes this easier and I'm assuming they copied it from apple like most good stuff they have.


 
Actually, amazingly enough they haven't - they may well have copied it from someone else of course. The Cinch program I linked to before does the same on OS X though.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 2, 2011)

The new iPad reminds me of the Macbook Air. What's the betting the new iPhone will be thinner still and similar in styling?


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Mar 2, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> The new iPad reminds me of the Macbook Air.


 
Lacking in any real substance?


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Mar 18, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> This is definitely true, poor-quality "air/flying" pun apart. It really highlights how much of modern speed issues are down to drive speed bottlenecks rather than the processor. A 1.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo with SSD seems to regularly outperform a 2.something one without.


 
Looking at buying the wife a new Macbook, either a 13" Air (with memory upgrade) or 13" MBP (with SSD upgrade) ... still dithering right now. 

I've been using a SSD boot drive on my main machine for the best part of a year now, and I'm totally sold on the difference.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 18, 2011)

If I was buying an apple laptop right now, I think I'd get the air. More pixels on the screen. Comparable performance. I'd only bother with the MBP if I was going to do some heavy lifting with it.


----------



## Piers Gibbon (Mar 18, 2011)

i'm loving the Air

and now I understand why it feels so much faster (even with just 4 gig free on the hard drive!) than my mbp..interesting


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Mar 20, 2011)

Just in case anyone else is thinking of getting one of the new Macbooks, there appears to be an issue with at least some of the new machines, specifically ones with Radeon graphics (i.e. the 15" and 17")

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2768351


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 20, 2011)

Crispy said:


> If I was buying an apple laptop right now, I think I'd get the air. More pixels on the screen. Comparable performance. I'd only bother with the MBP if I was going to do some heavy lifting with it.


 
Aren't they somewhat lacking in USB ports?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 20, 2011)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Aren't they somewhat lacking in USB ports?


 
They have the same amount as the MacBook Pro don't they?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 20, 2011)

They have two.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 21, 2011)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Aren't they somewhat lacking in USB ports?


 
2 USB, one display port and one sd card slot. Firewire and Ethernet missing. Odds are that the Displayport will turn into thunderbolt in the next revision, which will get you those missing ports with a dongle


----------



## editor (Mar 21, 2011)

Dongles are a nasty compromise. My old Vaio used to have two of them and I was always forgetting the ruddy things.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 21, 2011)

Dongles are fucking shit.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 21, 2011)

Indeed they are. If you need those other ports regularly, don't get an air.


----------



## editor (Mar 21, 2011)

I had to give a big talk once at a university and was going to project my photos and website on to a big screen. The college had hired in a big projector and then I realised I'd left my Sony Vaio dongle lead (100% proprietary, natch) at home. That was when I vowed to never buy anything important that needed a fucking special dongle.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 23, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Indeed they are. If you need those other ports regularly, don't get an air.


 
I need a laptop with at least 4 USB ports basically, what options do I have? 17" MBP?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 23, 2011)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I need a laptop with at least 4 USB ports basically, what options do I have? 17" MBP?


 
USB adapter thingy?


----------



## Crispy (Mar 23, 2011)

Only 3 on the 17" mbp


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 23, 2011)

Out of curiosity why do you need four at a time? I barely use more than one at any time these days, most data I deal with is wirelessly moved apart from video footage...


----------



## Crispy (Mar 23, 2011)

It'll be music related...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 23, 2011)

I'd use an adaptor; they're pretty small and it opens up the range of available machines hugely.


----------



## editor (Mar 23, 2011)

I used up my laptop's three ports quick enough when I was travelling: mouse, portable HD and swapping between phone/USB speakers. Can't be arsed with adapters.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Mar 23, 2011)

I don't get why they limit them so much...my netbook still manages cram 3 on, there should be loads of space on bigger machines.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Mar 23, 2011)

Wife ended up getting the lowest spec Macbook Pro 13", that's got all the ports she needs. It's the Air that's short on space to put them 'cos it's so svelte.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 23, 2011)

editor said:


> I used up my laptop's three ports quick enough when I was travelling: mouse, portable HD and swapping between phone/USB speakers. Can't be arsed with adapters.


 
Mouse? I use one of them blue tooth jobbies...


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 24, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I'd use an adaptor; they're pretty small and it opens up the range of available machines hugely.


 
Trouble is an awful lot of kit out there doesn't play nicely with anything other than a dedicated port.

I'm kinda stuck really, for various reasons my next laptop needs/wants to be a Mac, but the hardware specs are preventing me.

Is there a reason Apple are so stingy with regards to i/o?  It's not like a 17" machine is lacking in spaces to put them...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 24, 2011)

No idea, even my 13" MBP has easily enough space for another port perhaps even two...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 27, 2011)

*iOS 5 Likely Pushed To The Fall After A Cloud Unveiling At WWDC*

Rumours of a delay and a big update to iOS with version 5. Of course all rumours need to be viewed with healthy sceptism but there's something about this that has a ring of being true about at least some of it. 

Apple HAS to step things up now they are being well and truly beaten in unit terms by Android. A big step forward with iOS would be one way to keep them interesting...



> iOS 5 will launch in the fall and will be a major revamp of the OS.
> 
> It could well be previewed at WWDC, it just won’t be released then.
> 
> ...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 27, 2011)

lol techcrunch

I don't believe the "music locker" stuff at all - far too industry-tied and just generally too pointless. The .mac, or now, MobileMe, service has always been a bit crap and users of it have always been saying "why is this not better, why is it not like Dropbox" and I can see a move towards making it more useful and tying it into more apps and providing OS hooks for it (note that the official Apple apps already offer iDisk and WebDAV support - iDisk is based around the open WebDAV protocol). That's as far as I'd go; Apple has never put that much effort into it in the past.


----------



## editor (Mar 28, 2011)

OMG! Apple's store on Regent Street got splattered on Saturday. 







http://www.wirefresh.com/london-apple-store-hit-by-protesters-fanboys-scatter/



Kid_Eternity said:


> Rumours of a delay and a big update to iOS with version 5. Of course all rumours need to be viewed with healthy sceptism but there's something about this that has a ring of being true about at least some of it.


The _"Fall"?_

Have you turned Septic, buddy?


----------



## RaverDrew (Mar 28, 2011)

editor said:


> OMG! Apple's store on Regent Street got splattered on Saturday.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
I hope you remembered to mask up ed


----------



## Kanda (Mar 28, 2011)

I hope Ed had enough kleenex with him


----------



## editor (Mar 28, 2011)

Kanda said:


> I hope Ed had enough kleenex with him


It's not me who wanks over Apple products and gets an iStiffy at the news of every new product launch.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 28, 2011)

editor said:


> OMG! Apple's store on Regent Street got splattered on Saturday.
> 
> http://www.wirefresh.com/london-apple-store-hit-by-protesters-fanboys-scatter/
> 
> ...



Er what?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 28, 2011)

Anyway...WWDC confirms it will be about the next iOS and Mac os, given it's in early June it might give weight to the rumours of a fall release for iOS5...


----------



## editor (Mar 28, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Er what?


"Septic" = "Septic tank" = "Yank" = "American" = person using the phrase 'Fall' to describe Autumn.


----------



## sim667 (Mar 28, 2011)

editor said:


> OMG! Apple's store on Regent Street got splattered on Saturday.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



If they'd had done that in a bright colour it would have just looked like one of the old ipod ads.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Mar 28, 2011)

editor said:


> "Septic" = "Septic tank" = "Yank" = "American" = person using the phrase 'Fall' to describe Autumn.


 
But the word "Fall" was only used in the quote, not by K_E.
It's not that usual to go through quoted info and change Americanisms into proper English...


----------



## editor (Mar 28, 2011)

Lazy Llama said:


> But the word "Fall" was only used in the quote, not by K_E.
> It's not that usual to go through quoted info and change Americanisms into proper English...


Remind me not to try any form of humour or light ribbing again In This Serious Business Thread.

PS The 'fall' reference wasn't in quote marks.


----------



## Kanda (Mar 28, 2011)

On his initial post it was in the URL.... you picked him up on it. #1752


----------



## editor (Mar 28, 2011)

Kanda said:


> On his initial post it was in the URL.... you picked him up on it. #1752


What? Actually, forget it.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Mar 28, 2011)

Yeah, bloody Americans and their "buddies"....


----------



## Kanda (Mar 28, 2011)

What you rolling your eyes at? Was just saying, like Lama said, that he didn't use the term 'fall', it was in the URL.


----------



## editor (Mar 28, 2011)

Kanda said:


> What you rolling your eyes at? Was just saying, like Lama said, that he didn't use the term 'fall', it was in the URL.


It was in the post TITLE, not in the quoted part. Understand? 

Jeez.


----------



## editor (Mar 28, 2011)

Lazy Llama said:


> Yeah, bloody Americans and their "buddies"....


Yes. And that was put in _as part of the joke_ too. 

I'm beginning to wonder if proximity to a certain brand of equipment brings about some sort of catastrophic humour failure. 

I'm leaving this thread for a while before while I can still enjoy a laugh.


----------



## Kanda (Mar 28, 2011)

I'd guess it's nothing to do with the brand....


----------



## King Biscuit Time (Mar 28, 2011)

Work have just ordered me a 13" Macbook Pro - Hooray. Now I can join in on threads like these.

So where do I check in my sense of humour?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 28, 2011)

editor said:


> "Septic" = "Septic tank" = "Yank" = "American" = person using the phrase 'Fall' to describe Autumn.


 
Oh right. Not being a cockney the translation was lost on me.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 28, 2011)

Lazy Llama said:


> But the word "Fall" was only used in the quote, not by K_E.
> It's not that usual to go through quoted info and change Americanisms into proper English...


 
Heh it's ok, I didn't take offense.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 28, 2011)

King Biscuit Time said:


> Work have just ordered me a 13" Macbook Pro - Hooray. Now I can join in on threads like these.
> 
> So where do I check in my sense of humour?


 
Oh look, a post somewhere near the point of this thread! Seriously people, I know I don't always see eye to eye on tech news framing and selection but PLEASE lay off man, he's just having a bit of fun!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 29, 2011)

Well, Amazon have launched a cloud player - http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/28/amazon-cloud-player-ios/ - though it deliberately blocks iOS Safari for no apparent reason, even though you can download your files and play them, or in fact play them directly in Safari if you tick the right boxes  Amazon's oddness aside, maybe Apple _will_ do it then, or maybe the rumours have got confused.

I still think it's a duff idea though, unless somebody comes up with a proper syncing system from the desktop that automatically saves all the music you have there to your online storage. Even then, eating up the battery with 3G streaming of music doesn't sound so great to me - I can just load things onto the actual phone. (It might be more useful when using a laptop on wifi away from your home machine.)


----------



## JWH (Mar 29, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> unless somebody comes up with a proper syncing system from the desktop that automatically saves all the music you have there to your online storage.


 
Can't you do exactly this with Dropbox (paid version)?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 29, 2011)

It's possible to have transparent cloud file sync certainly - the way people store their music on their drives might be an issue, but not an insurmountable one. Amazon seem to have gone with manual uploading plus what you buy on their shop though, and Apple have always been crap with iDisk file sync, so I don't know that any of them will make it work.

It would actually be quite easy to write a player web front end for music files directly from Dropbox.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 29, 2011)

JWH said:


> Can't you do exactly this with Dropbox (paid version)?


 
Yes, but there'd be no interface fro playing music, just a bunch of folders to pick from, a track at a time.


----------



## JWH (Mar 29, 2011)

Ohhhhhhhhhhh, I see.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Mar 29, 2011)

Like we need even more load on the mobile networks. 

Personally I'd ban youtube as well.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Mar 29, 2011)

Can any Mac types tell me for how long imacs have had webcams built in?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 29, 2011)

Global Stoner said:


> Can any Mac types tell me for how long imacs have had webcams built in?


 
Hmmm about 7 years I think.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Mar 29, 2011)

Cheers, can tell my aunt she doesn't need to buy a webcam to use skype.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2011)

I dont think its been quite that long, as I bought an imac somewhere around the latter part of 2005 and it didnt have a webcam built in.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 29, 2011)

elbows said:


> I dont think its been quite that long, as I bought an imac somewhere around the latter part of 2005 and it didnt have a webcam built in.


 
Oh right, for some reason I had it in mind that they had, but you're right the new all in one iMac was updated October 2005 to include iSight.


----------



## 19sixtysix (Mar 29, 2011)

elbows said:


> I dont think its been quite that long, as I bought an imac somewhere around the latter part of 2005 and it didnt have a webcam built in.


 
I got the last model without one. Its a G5. I think they came in with the intel switchover.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 29, 2011)

19sixtysix said:


> I got the last model without one. Its a G5. I think they came in with the intel switchover.


 
First released in Oct 2004, updated in May 2005 with ambient light sensor, updated in October 2005 with iSight...Intel switch over was 2005 right?


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2011)

Intel switchover began in 2005 but the iMac with intel chip wasnt announced till Jan 2006 I think.

I wish I had never owned a mac before they switched to intel, I did not like the G4 or G5 chips at all. But I got my first mac on the day that tiger was released, in April 2005, if only I had waited just a bit longer!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 29, 2011)

elbows said:


> Intel switchover began in 2005 but the iMac with intel chip wasnt announced till Jan 2006 I think.
> 
> I wish I had never owned a mac before they switched to intel, I did not like the G4 or G5 chips at all. But I got my first mac on the day that tiger was released, in April 2005, if only I had waited just a bit longer!


 
What difference did the change in chips make?


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Mar 29, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Oh right. Not being a cockney the translation was lost on me.


 
It's in accurate too. 

Fall is the old English word for autum which fell into disuse in the Uk but didn't in the USA.


----------



## RaverDrew (Mar 29, 2011)

It's the joke that keeps on giving


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 29, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> It's in accurate too.
> 
> Fall is the old English word for autum which fell into disuse in the Uk but didn't in the USA.


 
Is that true? Never heard that before...


----------



## Crispy (Mar 30, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> What difference did the change in chips make?


 
Twice as fast. Runs windows.


----------



## editor (Mar 30, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Is that true? Never heard that before...


Just to put this hideous diversion to bed: Autumn is what Brits call the seaon. Fall is an obsolete reference in Britain but still used in American English. Fall comes from old Germanic languages. We used to call it Harvest before that. It's all about farmers moving to the city. Or something. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 30, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Twice as fast. Runs windows.


 
First part is cool, still don't know why running Windows on a Mac is worthwhile other than if you're a developer...but even then you could build or pick up a cheap windows machine...

Anway...has anyone tried the personal hotspot thing with their iPhone 4 and iPad?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Mar 30, 2011)

editor said:


> Just to put this hideous diversion to bed: Autumn is what Brits call the seaon. Fall is an obsolete reference in Britain but still used in American English. Fall comes from old Germanic languages. We used to call it Harvest before that. It's all about farmers moving to the city. Or something. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn


 
LOL! Ok!


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2011)

The last rumours I saw regarding a new iphone were that it may not arrive at the same time of year as previous iphones. But its all speculation at this point, there is not likely to be any solid info for months at the earliest.


----------



## Winot (Mar 30, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> First part is cool, still don't know why running Windows on a Mac is worthwhile other than if you're a developer...but even then you could build or pick up a cheap windows machine...


 
Because work uses Microsoft Word, and I got fed up with formatting errors.


----------



## strung out (Mar 30, 2011)

you can get MS Word on a mac too


----------



## Winot (Mar 30, 2011)

strung out said:


> you can get MS Word on a mac too


 
True, but I read stuff that suggested there could still be conversion errors. Not sure if that's true but not worth the risk, and running a virtual machine is kinda cool.


----------



## strung out (Mar 30, 2011)

fair enough. i've never had any problems afaik, but then again, i'm not the one who opens my OSX created word documents on a windows machine, so i might not hear if there are any formatting errors


----------



## sim667 (Mar 31, 2011)

strung out said:


> fair enough. i've never had any problems afaik, but then again, i'm not the one who opens my OSX created word documents on a windows machine, so i might not hear if there are any formatting errors


 
I do it all the time with no problems.


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Apr 1, 2011)

Winot said:


> True, but I read stuff that suggested there could still be conversion errors. Not sure if that's true but not worth the risk, and running a virtual machine is kinda cool.


 
This was kind true when office 2007 first came out (its office 2010 now anyway) and mac's couldn't read docx type files which was also true of windows machines using earlier versions of office but there's a converter so unless your IT dept hasn't installed the relevant converters for your windows or mac machine which is free from ms who got royally panned for the format change then this isn't really true.


----------



## mack (Apr 1, 2011)

Can't think who this would make a great gift for!

http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/looflirpa/e8bb/?pfm=Carousel_20110401_Apple_Store_2

If only....


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2011)

mack said:


> If only....


 
it wasnt April fools day.


----------



## mack (Apr 1, 2011)

elbows said:


> it wasnt April fools day.



Indeed


----------



## editor (Apr 5, 2011)

Interesting:



> *The First Major Newspaper to Tell Apple to Shove Its Subscription Plans Somewhere Dark and Horrible*
> 
> Was wondering when this would happen: The Financial Times is the first major paper to publicly and explicitly say "thanks, but no thanks" to Apple's new iOS subscription model, which would require giving up 30 percent of the subscription revenue to people who sign up through the app. (Update: As has been noted, more pertinent to the FT is that it'd be giving up valuable subscriber info going through Apple's subscriptions.)
> 
> ...


There's some good user comments after the article too.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 5, 2011)

New rumours of the home button going, sparking speculation a new touch bezel might be introduced:









> Ah, would you look at that. Earlier this year there were rumors about Apple ditching the physical home button on upcoming iOS devices, and now we have what appears to be a new iPod touch prototype matching such description, courtesy of CrunchGear via Mr. Blurrycam. According to its About screen, this "DVT-1" (a late milestone) device packs 128GB of memory -- twice as much as the largest available capacity option right now (remember that 64GB iPhone 4 prototype in Hong Kong?) -- as well as a model number "MC550LL" which isn't far off from those of the fourth-gen iPod touches ("MC54xLL"), though this similarity doesn't help prove its authenticity nor indicate whether it'll make it to the market. Still, if Apple does go ahead with this grubby device or at least its capacitive home button, we might see new touch or gesture controls for the bezel area below the screen à la webOS, as suggested by an earlier patent. But hey, let's not take this too seriously for now -- all this could turn out to be just a much belated April Fools' prank, right?


----------



## editor (Apr 5, 2011)

So no buttons (like Android) and a touch bezel (like Palm). That's magic alright.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 5, 2011)

editor said:


> So no buttons (like Android) and a touch bezel (like Palm). That's magic alright.


 
You know the whole 'ZOMG they ripped of that other company, who ripped off this other company ROFL!' argument is fairly redundant at this point.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Apr 5, 2011)

Two days into owning a Macbook Pro. So far I'm underwhelmed. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but thus far it feels like nice hardware with a no better than Windows 7 OS. 

Glad it's a work thing and that I didn't pay £2,500!


----------



## Crispy (Apr 5, 2011)

The gap isn't as big as it used to be.
Get a time machine backup on the go - that's still a major plus point in OSX's favour.
Oh, and if there's just one thing you install - make it Perian. Lets quicktime handle all video formats

EDIT: two things, you want Flip4mac too, for WMV


----------



## editor (Apr 5, 2011)

There's quite a few Mac-only programs that I've seen that look great and that I'd love to try. But not enough to pay the hefty premium for their machines.


----------



## Crispy (Apr 5, 2011)

You can get a 3-4 year old mini for £200 on ebay, if you want a machine to fiddle with


----------



## editor (Apr 5, 2011)

Crispy said:


> You can get a 3-4 year old mini for £200 on ebay, if you want a machine to fiddle with


I haven't got £200 to spend on a four year old machine that probably wouldn't run the graphic programs I've been looking at!


----------



## Crispy (Apr 5, 2011)

You're probably right 
Hackintosh is very easy these days, _if_ you have compatible hardware.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Apr 6, 2011)

The thing I'm missing from windows most is being able to toggle window open/minimised by clicking on the start bar icon. In OSX clicking the doc icon opens the window but doesn't minimise it with a second click. Feels massively unintuitive compared to Windows 7.


----------



## Crispy (Apr 6, 2011)

Double click the window title to minimise.
'intuitive' in this case just means 'what you're used to'

In windows, double clicking the title makes the window fill the screen. How is that intuitive?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 6, 2011)

And pre-OS X, double-clicking the title bar used to roll a window up so that only the title bar was visible. A lot of people complained when that went away.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Apr 6, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Double click the window title to minimise.
> 'intuitive' in this case just means 'what you're used to'
> 
> In windows, double clicking the title makes the window fill the screen. How is that intuitive?


 
Window title? I'm double clicking the icon, the top of the window (where the close/minimise/expand buttons are) and the bar at the very top. None seem to do anything.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 6, 2011)

Actually it's an option which I don't think is set by default any more - a machine that I upgraded to Snow Leopard has it on, but a new one doesn't.

It's in System Preferences > Appearance, anyway - the "Double-click a window's title bar to minimize" tickbox.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Apr 6, 2011)

Even with that I still have to mouse between the top of the screen and the bottom to minimise and reopen windows. That's shit. 

I do, however, love the dashboard.


----------



## Crispy (Apr 6, 2011)

Why minimise at all, anyway?


----------



## editor (Apr 6, 2011)

I like the way that shaking a window minimises all the other windows on a desktop. I don't know if that's Win7 only or if they nicked the idea off Apple, but I sure like it!


----------



## ChrisFilter (Apr 6, 2011)

Because I don't like feeling like my desktop is a mess beneath the active window. And when operating between two windows toggling the view is dead handy. 

Also, ctrl and command feels very random atm. Keep having to guess which one to use.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 6, 2011)

Command. Ctrl is not used for much at all except for custom app shortcuts. Everything that uses ctrl in Windows or Linux or whatever tends to be Cmd on OS X.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 6, 2011)

True, can't think what I use it for. Didn't find it odd at all when I changed over, think it took about a day iirc. Remember loving Exposé from the getgo, that four finger swipe is so sweet!

(man that sounds all kinds of wrong!)


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 7, 2011)

Apparently Apple have recently bought 12 Petabytes of storage.


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Apr 7, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Why minimise at all, anyway?


 
that's a rubbish cop out.

user I don't like this feature.

well do this.

yes but it's still not the behaviour I'd like.

well why do it at all?

minimising and the fact that the keyboards have no standard # symbol are the two reasons I've never gone full mac despite having them along side me.


----------



## sim667 (Apr 7, 2011)

#####

(alt +3)

Posted from a mac.


----------



## sim667 (Apr 7, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Even with that I still have to mouse between the top of the screen and the bottom to minimise and reopen windows. That's shit.
> 
> I do, however, love the dashboard.


 
You can cmd + Tab to cycle through windows.

If you set up expose properly you can have different workspaces which you switch between also.


----------



## Crispy (Apr 7, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> that's a rubbish cop out.
> 
> user I don't like this feature.
> 
> ...


 
I see your point. I don't minimise on windows either, though


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 7, 2011)

There's a conceptual difference between Windows and OS X (or OS 9 for that matter) around what a window actually is - though this has been eroded over the years, with some Mac apps being "closing window closes app" and some Windows apps sitting around even when apparently closed. But generally, with Windows, a window represents an application; it has the toolbars inside it, and when you close it you're closing the application. In that context, it makes more sense to minimise windows, because otherwise you'd have to load the app again.

Macs have always generally had windows being just one thing that an app does - exemplified by the fact that the toolbar is at the top of the screen and not connected to a window, with only window-specific tasks having window buttons (and even then not always). In that context, it makes little sense to minimise windows. You just close them if you don't want them. If you want to keep data that's in the window but get it out of the way for the moment you can just hide the app, which is faster to both do (cmd-H, can be done whenever the app is in front and affects all windows) and undo (cmd-tabbing to an app unhides it).

There are only two reasons I can think of to minimise windows on a Mac - if you have lots of windows in one application and want to _selectively_ hide some but not all (browsers occasionally I suppose), or if for some reason you want to make sure an app's windows never pop up if you accidentally cmd-tab to it.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 7, 2011)

sim667 said:


> #####
> 
> (alt +3)
> 
> Posted from a mac.


 
This was one thing that baffled me when I first got a mac. Although it's only because of Twitter that I realised It'd be a hassle...


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Apr 7, 2011)

sim667 said:


> #####
> 
> (alt +3)
> 
> Posted from a mac.



I know, the point being that there is no reason at all why it was removed from the keyboard which is a conformed standard layout (IE QWERTY).

moreover if you are lucky enough to have a MAC uk keyboard with your machine then it's there again and it's only the standardised US keyboards with UK language settings which removes it and apple don't unless you buy from the site and specify it ship with location appropriate keyboards which bugs me, it's like the default windows install being english US.  It's the only time if I'm honest I get patriotic!!


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Apr 7, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> There's a conceptual difference between Windows and OS X (or OS 9 for that matter) around what a window actually is - though this has been eroded over the years, with some Mac apps being "closing window closes app" and some Windows apps sitting around even when apparently closed. But generally, with Windows, a window represents an application; it has the toolbars inside it, and when you close it you're closing the application. In that context, it makes more sense to minimise windows, because otherwise you'd have to load the app again.
> 
> Macs have always generally had windows being just one thing that an app does - exemplified by the fact that the toolbar is at the top of the screen and not connected to a window, with only window-specific tasks having window buttons (and even then not always). In that context, it makes little sense to minimise windows. You just close them if you don't want them. If you want to keep data that's in the window but get it out of the way for the moment you can just hide the app, which is faster to both do (cmd-H, can be done whenever the app is in front and affects all windows) and undo (cmd-tabbing to an app unhides it).
> 
> There are only two reasons I can think of to minimise windows on a Mac - if you have lots of windows in one application and want to _selectively_ hide some but not all (browsers occasionally I suppose), or if for some reason you want to make sure an app's windows never pop up if you accidentally cmd-tab to it.


 
or you want to use the desktop for quick storage (a poor data management habit but we all do it...)


----------



## fen_boy (Apr 7, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> or you want to use the desktop for quick storage (a poor data management habit but we all do it...)



You wouldn't minimise windows one by one to access the desktop in Windows either though, would you?


----------



## Crispy (Apr 7, 2011)

Win+D or F11 gets you the desktop on windows or mac
Windows implementation is a bit ropy though - if you switch to another app without doing Win-D again, then you have to restore every window individually.


----------



## editor (Apr 7, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Win+D or F11 gets you the desktop on windows or mac
> Windows implementation is a bit ropy though - if you switch to another app without doing Win-D again, then you have to restore every window individually.


Eh? If you click the bottom right corner of the taskbar on Windows the desktop clears and click it again and everything comes back again exactly as it was. Simple.

Same applies to Win+D come to think of (not that I've ever used that command until you'd mentioned it).


----------



## Kanda (Apr 7, 2011)

editor said:


> Same applies to Win+D come to think of (not that I've ever used that command until you'd mentioned it).


 
Not if you switch to another app first. Win-D just minimizes that app, hitting it again only brings that app back.


----------



## Crispy (Apr 7, 2011)

editor said:


> Eh? If you click the bottom right corner of the taskbar on Windows the desktop clears and click it again and everything comes back again exactly as it was. Simple.
> 
> Same applies to Win+D come to think of (not that I've ever used that command until you'd mentioned it).


 
Press Win D. Press Alt-Tab. Press Win D again. See?


----------



## electroplated (Apr 7, 2011)

If you want to hide everything and just see your desktop, you can just install this tiny app - takes literally seconds

http://www.everydaysoftware.net/showdesktop/


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 7, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> or you want to use the desktop for quick storage (a poor data management habit but we all do it...)


 
That's what Exposé is for - I do it all the time, mouse bottom right corner is "show/hide desktop" for me. Not really worth minimising or hiding just for that.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 7, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> That's what Exposé is for - I do it all the time, mouse bottom right corner is "show/hide desktop" for me. Not really worth minimising or hiding just for that.


 
It's pretty neat, Exposé works very fluidly, never really worry about what windows are where anymore...


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Apr 7, 2011)

fen_boy said:


> You wouldn't minimise windows one by one to access the desktop in Windows either though, would you?


 
No I'd hit the minimise all and keep them minimised until i needed them...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 7, 2011)

*Apple wins $625m Mirror Worlds patents appeal*

Apple must be celebrating tonight:



> A judge has thrown out a ruling that would have forced Apple to pay $625m (£383m) for alleged patent infringements.
> 
> A jury decided last year that Apple's Spotlight, Time Machine and Cover Flow systems violated three patents held by small technology firm Mirror Worlds.
> 
> However, Judge Leonard Davis overturned the verdict saying that the claimant had failed to properly make their case.


----------



## editor (Apr 7, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Apple must be celebrating tonight:


It's pennies to them.


----------



## editor (Apr 7, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Press Win D. Press Alt-Tab. Press Win D again. See?


Why would I want to do that? If I was seeking a particular window out of many, I'd use win+tab.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 7, 2011)

editor said:


> It's pennies to them.


 
I don't think they'd sniff at not having to pay out over 600 million! If a corporation can get away with paying nothing it will do so, the figure isn't the issue, protecting their bottom line is.


----------



## editor (Apr 7, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I don't think they'd sniff at not having to pay out over 600 million! If a corporation can get away with paying nothing it will do so, the figure isn't the issue, protecting their bottom line is.


Their 'protection' will involve using their vastly powerful and bullying lawyers and all sorts of bought-up patent deals so I don't think anyone (apart from Apple) really wins on these kind of things. Other big companies do the same thing and it stinks.


----------



## Crispy (Apr 7, 2011)

editor said:


> Why would I want to do that? If I was seeking a particular window out of many, I'd use win+tab.


 
I'm not giving you a reccomended method of switching apps, I'm describing the behaviour of windows "desktop reveal"
You want to switch to the desktop for some purpose. This means hiding all open windows, doing your thing, then bringing those windows back.
If you interrupt the process (eg. select a single closed window, open a folder from the desktop, launch an app from the desktop, alt-tab), then you have to re-open every window individually to get back to where you were. The same interruption in OSX brings everything back to where it was.


----------



## editor (Apr 7, 2011)

Crispy said:


> I'm not giving you a reccomended method of switching apps, I'm describing the behaviour of windows "desktop reveal"
> You want to switch to the desktop for some purpose. This means hiding all open windows, doing your thing, then bringing those windows back.
> If you interrupt the process (eg. select a single closed window, open a folder from the desktop, launch an app from the desktop, alt-tab), then you have to re-open every window individually to get back to where you were. The same interruption in OSX brings everything back to where it was.


I never *ever* have the problem you describe (have you forgotten that you can also select apps via the taskbar?), but the Mac OSX has similar irritations which I'm not going to list because I have absolutely no interest in getting embroiled in a dull Mac vs Win battle. 

Both are hugely capable OSs and I find them equally good/annoying/brilliant. End of.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Apr 7, 2011)

Had a white screen of death today. Full crash. Never had that with Windows 7.

Just sayin'.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 7, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Had a white screen of death today. Full crash. Never had that with Windows 7.
> 
> Just sayin'.


 
Had a what now?! I've never had a crash!


----------



## ChrisFilter (Apr 7, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Had a what now?! I've never had a crash!


 
Yup. Just turned into a blank white screen. With that and the hdd dying in the first one, it's been a bit shoddy.

And this isn't just Apple-bashing contrariness - in the phone OS thread I'm bigging up iOS over Android. I just expected a lot more from the MBP considering a) the at least double price-tag and b) the evangelism from Mac fans.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 7, 2011)

I've had some kernel panics, and the odd just simply blank screen or a really unhelpful icon. Basically they mean hardware issues.


----------



## Kanda (Apr 7, 2011)

Last time I had an Apple crash on me I got this:


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 7, 2011)

I regularly see Macs crash at work, the idea that they don't is utter bollocks.


----------



## Kanda (Apr 7, 2011)

Course they do, am joshing. Everything crashes if you hammer it though. I have to deal with Linux/Solaris boxes crashing regularly too...


----------



## spitfire (Apr 7, 2011)

I have applications crash occasionally but I could count system crashes on less than one finger.

When people say crash do they mean system or application?

System never, application sometimes.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 7, 2011)

The Flash plugin crashes _constantly_.

If there's a proper system crash that you have to reboot to get out of, that's definitely a proper hardware fault. I've had a couple; the last one, I got a brand new 27" iMac to replace the old refurb model that had the issue, so in the end I'm not complaining  But it is very infrequent.


----------



## Crispy (Apr 7, 2011)

editor said:


> I never *ever* have the problem you describe (have you forgotten that you can also select apps via the taskbar?), but the Mac OSX has similar irritations which I'm not going to list because I have absolutely no interest in getting embroiled in a dull Mac vs Win battle.
> 
> Both are hugely capable OSs and I find them equally good/annoying/brilliant. End of.


I'm not trying tohavean OS battle. I'm just explaining how the 'desktop reveal' feature in windows works and why it's flawed. You can try it for yourself. If you have 20 or so windows open, which i imagine is not uncommon for a power user such as yourself, then revealing the desktop means this: you cannot open a new window, open a new app or switch to another app/window without the 'reveal desktop' feature forgetting where it is. The simplest example is to reveal the desktop, open a folder from the desktop and then press the reveal desktop button again. You cannot get back to where you were. It's bad UI design.


----------



## Kanda (Apr 7, 2011)




----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 7, 2011)

I think my post on the different windowing metaphors was pretty good though. I'm going to save that somewhere.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 7, 2011)

Kanda said:


>


 
I've lost sight of why this is all relavent to Apple new product rumour or general news...



FridgeMagnet said:


> I think my post on the different windowing metaphors was pretty good though. I'm going to save that somewhere.



That said...this is true...


----------



## ChrisFilter (Apr 8, 2011)

It crashed in its sleep last night. Wouldn't wake this morning. If this continues it's another return job I think.


----------



## Crispy (Apr 8, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> It crashed in its sleep last night. Wouldn't wake this morning. If this continues it's another return job I think.


 
Yeah, that ain't right.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Apr 8, 2011)

Crashed again. Write at the end of writing an enormous macro.

Apple Store time.

(another gripe... can't right click on a file in Finder and choose to 'send as attachment' in mail. That sucks.)


----------



## Crispy (Apr 8, 2011)

Drag the file onto the mail icon in the dock


----------



## Kanda (Apr 8, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Crashed again. Write at the end of writing an enormous macro.


 
Writing a macro in what??


----------



## ChrisFilter (Apr 8, 2011)

Excel.

It was a full system crash though... not an app crash.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Apr 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Drag the file onto the mail icon in the dock


 


+1 OSX.


----------



## Crispy (Apr 8, 2011)

This also works with the little icon in the window title - it can be dragged off the title bar while the document is open and put in a finder window (exposé while holding the button down to reveal it) or dropped onto mail.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 8, 2011)

Looks like Apple is seeing the games market as a key feature in it's future with the latest hires:



> While nothing has been officially confirmed yet, UK gaming magazine MCV is reporting that current Nintendo UK head of PR, Rob Saunders, and Activision’s European PR director, Nick Grange, are set to join Apple to help promote iPhone, iPad and iPod touch apps and iPad hardware, respectively.
> 
> Saunders recently surprised industry watchers by suddenly announcing his departure from Nintendo, and his next destination was unclear until this point. If Grange is also set to join him, it will represent a major coup for Apple having poached two top gaming executives. What’s more, it demonstrates that Apple is getting serious about games.
> 
> ...



Those two are real heavyweights going by the projects they've worked on!


----------



## mrs quoad (Apr 11, 2011)

Fair play. I really took to my iPod as a gaming device, basically. Apart from the stuff at the gym. And the djing apps.

iPad has a long way to go to catch up with the iPod, though. Re: games, at least. IMO.


----------



## sim667 (Apr 12, 2011)

As far as crashing goes are you talking about system crashes, system hangs, application unexpectedly quitting or applications hanging? All of which have different explanations, all of which most people call 'crashes'


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 13, 2011)

sim667 said:


> As far as crashing goes are you talking about system crashes, system hangs, application unexpectedly quitting or applications hanging? All of which have different explanations, all of which most people call 'crashes'


 
Who cares? From a user POV a crash is a crash.


----------



## editor (Apr 15, 2011)

Just weird.
Why Are So Many People Dancing in Apple Stores?
http://gizmodo.com/#!5792398/why-are-so-many-people-dancing-in-apple-stores/gallery/1


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 15, 2011)

Dunno, people like all kinds of crap.


----------



## magneze (Apr 15, 2011)

editor said:


> Just weird.
> Why Are So Many People Dancing in Apple Stores?
> http://gizmodo.com/#!5792398/why-are-so-many-people-dancing-in-apple-stores/gallery/1


The link doesn't take me to that article. I can't even see the article in the page I got too from that link... confused


----------



## Crispy (Apr 15, 2011)

gizmodo links always take me to the front page of gizmodo
but then gizmodo is a crap website anyway, so I don't particularly mind


----------



## editor (Apr 15, 2011)

magneze said:


> The link doesn't take me to that article. I can't even see the article in the page I got too from that link... confused


 Really? It works for me. How about this: http://gizmo.do/hOXxir

You can see one of the videos directly here but there's an annoying advert at the beginning. 

[video]http://youtu.be/KVnLX3ex3wk[/video]

I fear I've already given these attention seeking idiots more attention than they deserve.

*Oh, I see YouTube embeds aren't working now since they changed the URL.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 15, 2011)

They do, you have to take the code from the address bar up until the &...


----------



## magneze (Apr 15, 2011)

Yeah, the links work now, only I wish they didn't. Nauseating.

The answer is clearly either (a) because they get free shit from Apple or (b) they are insufferable twats. Possibly both.


----------



## editor (Apr 15, 2011)

magneze said:


> Yeah, the links work now, only I wish they didn't. Nauseating.


 Sorry!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 20, 2011)




----------



## Crispy (Apr 20, 2011)

Except its not the first


----------



## Obnoxiousness (Apr 20, 2011)

I use a Microsoft mouse on an iMac.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Apr 20, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Except its not the first


 
Yeah I know but it plays neatly into the amusing myth about Apple.


----------



## sim667 (Apr 21, 2011)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Who cares? From a user POV a crash is a crash.


 
Which is part of the problem


----------



## Kid_Eternity (May 16, 2011)

Rumour. 

What the hell could they be about to announce other than a new iPhone?



> We have just received some information from a solid Apple source, and if they’re right, Apple may be planning something big for its 10th retail anniversary this Thursday the 19th. Here’s what we’ve been told:
> 
> There’s an overnight shift planned for around 10-15 individuals at each Apple Store to work from late Saturday all the way through mid-Sunday.
> 
> ...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (May 23, 2011)

So er Apple put iPads everywhere...that was the 'big' news...sheesh. One small thing that's pretty cool is the bloody iPhone app for the Apple store is now available in the UK. No idea why that took over a year to get here...


----------



## editor (May 23, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> So er Apple put iPads everywhere...that was the 'big' news...sheesh. One small thing that's pretty cool is the bloody iPhone app for the Apple store is now available in the UK. No idea why that took over a year to get here...


What, was that _it?_
Really? Surely people must get bored of reporting these non stories sooner or later? _Please._

Today's massive news. The iPhone 5 might have curved glass. Like several other phones. Possibly. Whoop-de-doo.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (May 23, 2011)

editor said:


> What, was that _it?_
> Really? Surely people must get bored of reporting these non stories sooner or later? _Please._
> 
> Today's massive news. The iPhone 5 might have curved glass. Like several other phones. Possibly. Whoop-de-doo.


 
Yeah interactive product description tablets basically. Wasn't sure I'd read it right when I first saw it...

Er yeah that curve class thing, I don't *get* what that's all about, why would you want your phone to have a concave or convex screen!?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (May 27, 2011)

Rumours of a MacBook Air running on an A5 chip, makes you wonder what kind of devices Apple tests internally that never see the light of day (I remember reading years ago an interview with a Nintendo boss who said that about 10% of the devices they make ever make it out the door and they test and test and test all kinds of weird and wonderful things!):









> Japanese blog Mac Otakara claims sources have told them Apple is testing a MacBook Air with an A5 processor, the same CPU powering the iPad 2. While the machine performed "better than expected" according to their source, Mac Otakara says it's unclear whether this test machine was running Mac OS X or iOS. At any rate, the site claims this A5 variant MacBook Air has been created "just for experiment." Mac Otakara has been a reliable source of rumors in the past, having been one of the first sites to accurately depict the updated form factor of the iPad 2.
> 
> If Apple has indeed built such a device, it's unlikely the company intends to put it on the market. While the A5 processor is powerful enough under iOS, in terms of raw performance it pales in comparison to even the least powerful Intel chips. For example, the iPad 2's Geekbench score is around 720, while the lowest-rated MacBook Air processor scored over 2000. Benchmarks don't tell the whole story, of course, but they're a fairly reliable predictor of the general performance you can expect to get from a machine.
> 
> ...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (May 31, 2011)

*Lion, iOS 5, and iCloud at WWDC 11*

Apparently the fever pitch got so high that Apple saw a good pr opportunity and issued a press release confirming iCloud would be detailed at next wees WWDC11...



> You can put down your speculation cap for a couple of seconds, Apple just sent out a press release indicating that the company will show off Lion, iOS 5, and iCloud on Monday, June 6th, at WWDC 11. Steve Jobs and other executives will take the stage to show off the new fandangled services to the world.
> 
> This news puts to rest some of the rumors that iOS 5 wouldn’t be announced until September, alongside the rumored iPhone 5 (4s).
> 
> For those who haven’t been following the iCloud rumors, it has been said that Apple’s about to release a major refresh for MobileMe. Some parts of the upgrade could be free (email, calendar, etc), while others may carry a price tag, much like MobileMe currently does. There have been rumors that iCloud would include a media locker that would let users stream their media across the cloud to any device that can access iCloud. Again, these are just a couple of rumors, but we’ll be sure to know for sure come next Monday once WWDC kicks off.


----------



## Structaural (Jun 1, 2011)

They better sort out MobileMe, I haven't paid for that for years, maybe just once Apple you could give something away for free. Otherwise most of us will stick with Google and Drop Box.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 1, 2011)

Structaural said:


> They better sort out MobileMe, I haven't paid for that for years, maybe just once Apple you could give something away for free. Otherwise most of us will stick with Google and Drop Box.


 
It's going to have to beat both Dropbox, and the Amazon and Google music services combined and be either very cheap or free to interest me...


----------



## mrs quoad (Jun 1, 2011)

Not sure where to put this, so ay.

Pages, Numbers and Keynote are now universal apps. 

I'm not too sure there's much point in having a word processing programme on an ipod (particularly given they're not - I believe - able to handle hard keyboards), but I guess I can now browse documents at the gym. Oh yes.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 1, 2011)

You already could (with better msoffice compatability) with Docs2Go


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 1, 2011)

mrs quoad said:


> Not sure where to put this, so ay.
> 
> Pages, Numbers and Keynote are now universal apps.
> 
> I'm not too sure there's much point in having a word processing programme on an ipod (particularly given they're not - I believe - able to handle hard keyboards), but I guess I can now browse documents at the gym. Oh yes.



They're free for those who bought the iPad versions, personally I don't have much need for this but I can see it working as a kind of accompaniment to the main apps, instead of (foolishly) attempting to write huge docs or complicated spreadsheets on your iPhone4 you'd use these to tweak or do small edits on the move...I think they have something called 'smart zone' which apparently makes typing easier...


----------



## Sunray (Jun 1, 2011)

I'm interested in seeing where they are taking the next version of iOS.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 1, 2011)

Sunray said:


> I'm interested in seeing where they are taking the next version of iOS.


 
Ditto. Notifications and widgets/home screen are two areas where Android (and webOS, bless it) are significantly more functional. Rumours of system-wide twitter integration too.


----------



## editor (Jun 1, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Ditto. Notifications and widgets/home screen are two areas where Android (and webOS, bless it) are significantly more functional. Rumours of system-wide twitter integration too.


iOS lags miles behind its competitors in notifications. Seeing as they hired the fella who created the superb system for webOS, expect something similar for iOS5. Widgets are definitely an idea worth ripping off too.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 1, 2011)

It'll have cloud support, obviously, which may also mean a better "file" API - hopefully, because the way that iPads particularly deal with files sucks donkeys, and it's already been almost entirely overtaken by people building Dropbox support into their apps. If you have an app that uses files, even if it just exports them, it _needs_ Dropbox right now. I said that this would be a problem at least a year ago and that Apple would have to do something or lose the market, and look, they didn't and they pretty much have - maybe this is the attempt to grab it back and have people using iDisks and MobileMe.

Notifications sound likely, though what exactly, I don't know. There won't be OS twitter support


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 1, 2011)

Sunray said:


> I'm interested in seeing where they are taking the next version of iOS.


 
Indeed. The cloud stuff could solve some annoying things like having to wire up to sync your iPhone and computer...


----------



## editor (Jun 1, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Indeed. The cloud stuff could solve some annoying things like having to wire up to sync your iPhone and computer...


A notion that almost seems _quaint_ compared to most other platforms.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 1, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It'll have cloud support, obviously, which may also mean a better "file" API - hopefully, because the way that iPads particularly deal with files sucks donkeys, and it's already been almost entirely overtaken by people building Dropbox support into their apps. If you have an app that uses files, even if it just exports them, it _needs_ Dropbox right now. I said that this would be a problem at least a year ago and that Apple would have to do something or lose the market, and look, they didn't and they pretty much have - maybe this is the attempt to grab it back and have people using iDisks and MobileMe.
> 
> Notifications sound likely, though what exactly, I don't know. There won't be OS twitter support


 
Yup. Integrated Twitter and Facebook would be nice in two areas for me: not having to log in to share in each app and being able to share directly via Safari...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 1, 2011)

editor said:


> A notion that almost seems _quaint_ compared to most other platforms.


 
Why are other platforms doing something more advanced than cloud syncing?


----------



## Crispy (Jun 1, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Why are other platforms doing something more advanced than cloud syncing?


 
Plugging in is quaint.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 1, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Plugging in is quaint.


 
It's annoying is what it is! Quaint isn't a term I'd usually associate with tech given the speed it evolves at...


----------



## ChrisFilter (Jun 1, 2011)

iOS is a long way behind Android, but the apps availavailable are still a long, long way ahead. This is why I use an Android phone but would much rather own an iPad than a honeycomb tab.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 1, 2011)

There is no way I'm taking or restoring backups, or transferring gigs of music/movies/photos, to a device over the cloud, even with wifi. USB is going to be around for quite a while.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 1, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> There is no way I'm taking or restoring backups, or transferring gigs of music/movies/photos, to a device over the cloud, even with wifi. USB is going to be around for quite a while.


 
Plus of course charging.


----------



## editor (Jun 1, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> There is no way I'm taking or restoring backups, or transferring gigs of music/movies/photos, to a device over the cloud, even with wifi. USB is going to be around for quite a while.


Nice to have the choice though, no?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 1, 2011)

editor said:


> Nice to have the choice though, no?


 
I do have the choice already. Except for backups I suppose, but then the choice to do a 16 gig backup over the air isn't one I'm likely to make.

eta: the choice in that I could store my music on a server and listen to it from there, or use Spotify, or upload video to a server, or use a streaming service for that, or something like that. I like to have things stored locally though, particularly with the power consumption of 3G, its speed, it not being available when there's no signal and the networks being likely to really crack down on data limits if people continue to stream a lot.


----------



## editor (Jun 1, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I do have the choice already. Except for backups I suppose, but then the choice to do a 16 gig backup over the air isn't one I'm likely to make.


Of course, but I'd imagine not everyone has such a huge backup file size though.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 1, 2011)

Well, that's just when it's a fresh backup, to be fair; the incremental ones aren't that large, though they can still be quite a size depending on how long it's been since the last one and how much you do. Restoring needs USB certainly, as would, say, installing a new OS version, or developing apps, or if you wanted to play about with the OS itself with rooting/jailbreaking.

I use lots of cloud services but I distrust them as the _only_ method of getting things to and from a phone. I always want the option of transferring the data from one machine I own to another without have to go through some intermediary website. My contacts, calendar and task data is all OTA synced for example but if I needed to, I know I could transfer them over my local network or by USB, because they're all locally stored on my machine(s).


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 1, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> the networks being likely to really crack down on data limits if people continue to stream a lot.


 
I don't like the idea of folks streaming stuff down 3g...mobile net can be slow enough at times, I'd rather that upgrades to networks speed didn't get wasted this way. One mp3 is a lot of pages of urban.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 1, 2011)

Facebook can stay an app, as can twitter.  I see no benefit of integration, an OS is an OS and an APP is an APP and thats the way I like it to stay.  When one tries to do the other, history has many failures.

Just need a better way of choosing running apps, double click is annoying.   Notifications work for me, they just look out of the dark ages, if you get a lot then it starts to fail.  Someone showed it put it onto the Spotlight page which looked about perfect.

I don't actually expect too much this time round, because its the 1st Cloud iteration for iPhone, but what is there will get better.


----------



## editor (Jun 1, 2011)

I really missed having a flashing LED for notifications on my iPhone. It seems ridiculous that I had to turn the thing on just to see if I'd missed a call/received text/email etc.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 1, 2011)

Sunray said:


> Facebook can stay an app, as can twitter.  I see no benefit of integration, an OS is an OS and an APP is an APP and thats the way I like it to stay.  When one tries to do the other, history has many failures.
> 
> Just need a better way of choosing running apps, double click is annoying.   Notifications work for me, they just look out of the dark ages, if you get a lot then it starts to fail.  Someone showed it put it onto the Spotlight page which looked about perfect.
> 
> I don't actually expect too much this time round, because its the 1st Cloud iteration for iPhone, but what is there will get better.


 
I think the rumour is the guy that came up with that has been snapped up by Apple...


----------



## editor (Jun 2, 2011)

That Mac Defender won't go away - Apple's fix has already been broken:



> The gang responsible for a month-long plague of fake Mac security software has already updated their "scareware" to evade defenses Apple put in place late Tuesday, a security company confirmed today.
> 
> "Apple's [antivirus] did not detect the new sample," said Peter James, a spokesman for Intego, a French firm that develops Mac security software.
> 
> http://www.macworld.co.uk/macsoftware/news/index.cfm


I guess this is the price Apple pay for being so successful.


----------



## Kanda (Jun 2, 2011)

Nothing can defend against user stupidity.


----------



## sim667 (Jun 2, 2011)

Kanda said:


> Nothing can defend against user stupidity.


 


As for a cloud service, syncing wirelessly will be sloooooow. And why would anyone wanna play for a cloud service, when you can already share your media from your home computer easily and free?

I really dont want facebook and twitter to be integrated into a phone OS. Ill look at them when I choose to look at them, not when my  mobile phone tells me to look at them


----------



## WWWeed (Jun 2, 2011)

*Fanboizm is getting beyond a joke...*




			
				The Register said:
			
		

> A Chinese teenager desperate to get his hands on an iPad allegedly sold a kidney to raise some fondleslab funding.
> 
> According to various news reports, 17-year-old Zheng travelled from the city of Huaishan in Anhui Province to Chenzhou in neighbouring Hunan Province, after hooking up with an internet intermediary.
> 
> ...



http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/02/ipad_kidney/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 2, 2011)

That's not fanboism, that's somekind of mental illness...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 2, 2011)

Kanda said:


> Nothing can defend against user stupidity.


 
Aint that the truth.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 2, 2011)

Apparently Apple have secured the last of the big four record companies and iCloud will be free for a time (a year?) for those who've bought stuff via the iStore then $25 a year...


----------



## Crispy (Jun 2, 2011)

Why pay for services that are just as good and free?


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 2, 2011)

Because it says apple.


----------



## editor (Jun 2, 2011)

Global Stoner said:


> Because it says apple.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 2, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Why pay for services that are just as good and free?


 
This is something I don't get too. Either Apple is just assuming that there are enough people who will buy this purely on brand or they have a bit more up their sleeve which will make this worth the cost?


----------



## maldwyn (Jun 2, 2011)

The thing with Apple keynotes is the rumours are always much more interesting than what's delivered.

Will iCloud be this year's Ping?


----------



## Sunray (Jun 2, 2011)

$25 a year for Spotify like service will make Spotify seem expensive. 

If its not that, then meh.  Well done Apple for spending your cash mountain on something nobody wants.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 2, 2011)

maldwyn said:


> The thing with Apple keynotes is the rumours are always much more interesting than what's delivered.
> 
> Will iCloud be this year's Ping?



Certainly seems so going by the leaks and speculations. Apple really need to have a big fucking surprise next week to not end up with egg on their face.



Sunray said:


> $25 a year for Spotify like service will make Spotify seem expensive.
> 
> If its not that, then meh.  Well done Apple for spending your cash mountain on something nobody wants.



Yep...


----------



## editor (Jun 3, 2011)

Sunray said:


> $25 a year for Spotify like service will make Spotify seem expensive.


If their new service involves fucking iTunes, it'll be worth paying the extra.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Apple really need to have a big fucking surprise next week to not end up with egg on their face.


 
I dont see why. People setting their expectations too high and then acting all let down did not stop the ipad from being a success. Indeed the feling of letdown is a natural side-effect of the amount of hype, much of it 3rd party, which comes before events. Its been pretty much impossible for the reality to meet the hype for years now, so who cares when the same thing happens again, what does it actually mean?

I dont expect anything earth-shattering, nor do Apple need to deliver such a thing. There are a number of areas, long discussed here, where iOS needs improvement. There are some improved cloud services that can help reduce some of the clunkiness. A few little wows here and there, mostly to be appreciated by people who already own an iOS device and wont mind some shortcomings if the integration is done in a lovely way and there is enough of an upside.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 3, 2011)

elbows said:


> I dont see why. People setting their expectations too high and then acting all let down did not stop the ipad from being a success. Indeed the feling of letdown is a natural side-effect of the amount of hype, much of it 3rd party, which comes before events. Its been pretty much impossible for the reality to meet the hype for years now, so who cares when the same thing happens again, what does it actually mean?
> 
> I dont expect anything earth-shattering, nor do Apple need to deliver such a thing. There are a number of areas, long discussed here, where iOS needs improvement. There are some improved cloud services that can help reduce some of the clunkiness. A few little wows here and there, mostly to be appreciated by people who already own an iOS device and wont mind some shortcomings if the integration is done in a lovely way and there is enough of an upside.


 
Apple have been stoking this with leaks and the unusual press release mentioning iCoud services (note plural) so those expectations have been raised intentionally. They have to meet or exceed them if they don't want the repeat the ridicule of the Ping announcement...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 3, 2011)

There hasn't really been all that much hype for this, relatively, even in the tech press.

Also, Ping didn't get much approval because it was shit, rather than because it was overhyped. If nobody had mentioned it beforehand at all it would still have been shit.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 3, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> There hasn't really been all that much hype for this, relatively, even in the tech press.
> 
> Also, Ping didn't get much approval because it was shit, rather than because it was overhyped. If nobody had mentioned it beforehand at all it would still have been shit.


 
If Ping wasn't talked about before hand it wouldn't have such harsh responses. I've been reading a number of Mac/Apple blogs and websites over the last week or so and there's nothing but hype and expectation, especially if you read the 10 page discussions on places like Mac Rumours...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 3, 2011)

People are discussing Mac rumours on macrumors...?


----------



## editor (Jun 3, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> There hasn't really been all that much hype for this, relatively, even in the tech press.


Apple have definitely been leaking info on this, but this time around even the uber-fanboy sites are finding it hard to get excited about what's come out so far.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 3, 2011)

Not even leaking - an actual press release, which is almost unheard of.


----------



## Kanda (Jun 3, 2011)

editor said:


> Apple have definitely been leaking info on this, but this time around even the uber-fanboy sites are finding it hard to get excited about what's come out so far.


 
Press releases are now considered 'leaking' information???


----------



## editor (Jun 3, 2011)

Kanda said:


> Press releases are now considered 'leaking' information???


Apple also have a well known policy of leaking snippets of additional info to certain journos, ensuring that they're 'onside' when the product is officially announced.


----------



## editor (Jun 3, 2011)

This is a *great* program on the PC:


> CCleaner for Mac clears out the system crap in one click – and it’s free
> http://www.wirefresh.com/ccleaner-for-mac-clears-out-the-system-crap-in-one-click-and-its-free/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 3, 2011)

editor said:


> This is a *great* program on the PC:


 
Excellent, I've been waiting for a Mac version, this is one of my most recommended apps for the PC.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 3, 2011)

quoted to the osx thread: http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/th...-related-devices-applications-advice-amp-news


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Apple have been stoking this with leaks and the unusual press release mentioning iCoud services (note plural) so those expectations have been raised intentionally. They have to meet or exceed them if they don't want the repeat the ridicule of the Ping announcement...


 
Earlier you said they needed a big surprise. Have they stoked expectations that there will be a big surprise then?

I suppose my problem is that Im none the wiser as to exactly what you think they have to deliver in order for it to be a success. I just think both their OS and cloud services need to be better than what they offer now, which should not be too hard. I dont expect them to deliver everything we could possibly imagine, and more, and for free.

Still I would not be shocked if they had a few tricks up their sleeve, so I dont rule out surprises. I just dont look to Apple to make me go wow all that often really, I dont expect it at this event, although some of the changes will probably be to my liking.

Really I wonder how any company is going to make me go wow in the years ahead, since for me things seem to have reached a bit of a milestone of maturity. For sure many specs can keep evolving further but in many ways the latest gen of devices, whether they be tablets, phones, video cameras, tvs or whatever other gizmo, are really good enough. So it should be software & service evolution that has much room for improvement in my eyes, but even there most of my daily needs are already well met, Im kinda saturated, running out of reasons to upgrade anything in my life.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 3, 2011)

elbows said:


> Earlier you said they needed a big surprise. Have they stoked expectations that there will be a big surprise then?


 
They do. They have. If they came out and said: iCloud is music locker (all your music not just your iTunes bought), plus TV/film, plus full MobileMe for free then 25 dollars a year that'd be pretty impressive.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 4, 2011)

Looks like OTA updates have been confirmed due to an iTunes cock up...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 4, 2011)

Kevin Fox publishes a list of things he thinks may be in the WWDC announcement. http://fury.com/2011/06/my-guesses-on-the-huge-changes-apple-will-unveil-at-wwdc/ While those would indeed be awesome, and Apple really do need to up the game with MobileMe, I suspect he will be disappointed.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 4, 2011)

Just a little on the optimistic side aint he? 

I can see him being in the ball park with this:



> Universal login using your Apple account: Walk up to any Mac, sign in as a guest using your Apple account credentials and you’ll be brought to the same desktop you get on your personal machine. Files will be downloaded from the cloud (or your home network) on demand, and you’ll have access to all the apps you’ve purchased via the Mac App Store, downloaded and installed on-demand, and removed securely, along with your data, upon logout.



But the following aint happening if you ask me...



> Apple will announce that by early 2012 every screen they make will be touch-enabled, including the entire Mac line, and while it will be several years before OS X apps require touch, there will be universal gestures that will be useful in today’s apps from day one, and more gestures that tomorrows apps can choose to support to augment the pointer-and-keyboard model.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 5, 2011)

Interesting leak with a new twist on the received wisdom of how iCloud will work...



> Here’s how iCloud and the new Time Capsule will work, according to a source close to the company who asked not be identified. It’s pretty surprising:
> 
> 
> According to the source, Apple has developed a system to make users’ Time Machine backups available through its new iCloud service.
> ...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 5, 2011)

That sounds unlikely. Something that radical would have been trailed a lot more heavily than this. It's also not a cloud system _at all_ and would depend on owning specific hardware, and wouldn't be accessible to Windows users so would cut off a lot of the iOS user market...

...ah, I see:


> Our source says the system is fully baked and is “what’s next in line” — but stopped short of saying this is what Jobs will reveal at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference on Monday.
> 
> The source said it will be added to future versions of OS X and iOS — but they didn’t know which versions of OS X and iOS. There appears to be no sign of it in beta releases of Lion, which has been available to developers for months. Apple has kept iOS 5 under tight wraps, and it may be ready for this system.


"but we're going to try to link it to iCloud anyway"


----------



## gabi (Jun 6, 2011)

and so it starts. i love these launch events.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/06/wwdc-2011-liveblog-steve-jobs-talks-ios-5-os-x-lion-icloud-an/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Reckon this might be a bit more interesting than some of the other keynotes Jobbo has done...


----------



## maldwyn (Jun 6, 2011)

Any Apple live feeds?

Is TWiT doing a 'as it happens' coverage?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

maldwyn said:


> Any Apple live feeds?
> 
> Is TWiT doing a 'as it happens' coverage?



None that I know of although I've read Apple tends to not say then announce them 20 minutes before show time. I've got this page open in Safari (the only browser which Apple live video feeds work in annoyingly) just in case: http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/


----------



## maldwyn (Jun 6, 2011)

ATM TWiT is covering Call of Duty release at Microsoft Big E3 but will switch to Apple event at 6


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Ah cool will check that out. Bloody hell I need more monitors got Twit going, you tube live stream, three bloody pages updating. And I'm still working monitoring traffic, Twitter and facebook.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Aha live video: http://live.twit.tv/


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 6, 2011)

I'm only just skimming the engadget liveblog, but Lion looks serious so far. Revamped Exposé, auto-saving and versioning for everything, saving app states...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

30 dollars for Lion for 5 devices? Nice!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 6, 2011)

July on the App Store. Damn them, waving this stuff under my nose and then _whipping it cruelly away_.


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2011)

They're in full chest beating mode at the moment!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> July on the App Store. Damn them, waving this stuff under my nose and then _whipping it cruelly away_.


 
So...four to six weeks? Very happy with that price I have to say...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Is it me or is this flying through faster than usual?


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2011)

Engadget has actually mustered a reasonably witty comment: 


> Over 1,500 new APIs! Got a few cat-calls from the saucier coders in the room


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2011)

So let's see what the webOS guy has brought to the iPhone!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

This is a nice site for image updates: http://live.thisismynext.com/Event/Live_from_WWDC_2011


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2011)

Oh. It looks just like Android!

Big improvement, through.


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2011)

And it's got the weboS swipe!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Not too shabby.


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2011)

There doesn't seem to be a "clear all" button though.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Twitter, at bloody last, having to login or change passwords on tons of apps is a right pain. Single login is very very useful.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Reader and Reading List, both nice, both about time. Tabbed browsing?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Knew they'd use the flickr stats, that's some amazing growth.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

About time they did hardware camera shooting, and faster start up times...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

MobileMe goes and iCloud is now free...


----------



## Crispy (Jun 6, 2011)

Limited subset is free, I bet...


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2011)

The iPhone improvements are all worthwhile and will make the phones far better to use, but as one commentator put it, it 'looks like the innovation engine ran out of coal.'

Just about every 'new' feature on offer owes a large debt to Android (TouchWiz/Sense 3.0), Blackberry or Windows Phone.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Limited subset is free, I bet...


 
No pricing yet, no ads though which is nice...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 6, 2011)

iCloud looks like the sort of Dropbox killer and file management system i was saying they should go for. Devil, details, of course.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> iCloud looks like the sort of Dropbox killer and file management system i was saying they should go for. Devil, details, of course.


 
Certainly looking that way.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Wow all free.


----------



## sim667 (Jun 6, 2011)

Hmm  Im a mobileme subscriber, so i guess they'll just convert me over automatically.

Ill be interested to see how lion goes as a download/upgrade only....... Ill hold off getting that for a while just incase.


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Wow all free.


It seems to be the same sort of thing as Picasa, but the PhotoStream feature looks pretty damn nifty.

http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/photo-stream.html


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Yep. Some nice stuff here, nothing to get mad excited about, lots of polish on familiar ideas (although to be frank these days very rare is it that a company doesn't evolve another's ideas), looks fairly solid. Have to say actually disappointed they didn't do anything like replacing photos with a mobile iPhoto properly, would have liked that and some instagram style features for it. Think Apple have missed a trick here [by the look of it], instagram, photoforge style apps are huge and the flickr traffic speaks for itself...


----------



## paolo (Jun 6, 2011)

Yay

- Wireless sync and backup
- Song match when syncing your 'own' tracks (I was expecting Google's music thing to do this too... have they? not been following. If they have, then maybe 'meh')
- Quick camera start
- And the bits and bobs ripped off from elsewhere (notifications etc)
- Apps in the cloud
- Photos in the cloud (but...)

Meh
- Mail/Calendar/Contacts sync (If like me you're all gmailed, iOS already supports it)

Boo
- Photos in cloud only 30 days worth? Bit rubbish. Sorts out the syncing across devices, but still means there's no easy-as solution for never losing stuff.


The lack of photos kept forever makes iCloud fall short for me. I've had several disk failures in the last year, and I realllly want a pan-device solution for not losing stuff. Not just a dumb file backup solution, like carbonite or whatever, but something that is smart, so photos, music etc are all dealt with intelligently and are available in their right cubby holes on my mobile devices. I'd easily pay £100 a year for that. Maybe I was hoping for too much. Maybe Apple will get there one day.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

So airplay2 basically has turned the iPad into a handheld mobile frontroom console machine? You load up a game, playing it on the screen isn't optimal due to your hands getting in the way, connect via your apple tv and your hd tv is now a console...very nice.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 6, 2011)

The song matching is really a good idea - that will save a lot of time, even given my scrappy mp3 collection, as long as you're not the first person ever to upload a track. I'm not sure that I will bother with it at all though. Document sync is much more useful.

Backup doesn't bother me. I have Backblaze and Time Machine and cloud docs across machines already; I feel pretty safe with five plus backup destinations (as I have more than one machine syncing to dropbox).


----------



## Crispy (Jun 6, 2011)

I can't believe that aiplay screen mirroring would give you anything like good enough latency to play games on.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Jun 6, 2011)

Crispy said:


> I can't believe that aiplay screen mirroring would give you anything like good enough latency to play games on.


 
If it does I might be tempted by an iPad.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 6, 2011)

As I have been saying for some time now, the hardware has fast become irrelevant.  Its all about the software and this really underlines what I have been saying.

Notifications, its weird that Apple felt that was the lowest priority item on the iPhone to get updated. 

This is their 1st effort remember and for a 1st effort its looking quite impressive. Give it a year or two and see where this goes.  I look forward to seeing how that all works, if its as slick as they make out it changes the game.

Only Google can actually compete on this, 3 gargantuan data centres are a multi-billion dollar investment and there are offering the services out for free?  Microsoft has done nothing of the kind with theirs.  Google has to some extent, but even they would probably have baulked at that.  Apple are clearly going to be charging for something, I wonder how temping those services will be?  Its difficult to make a free service paid.

25 quid to convert all my ripped music to iTunes music seems like the best offer Apple have ever made! *Throws money at Apple*


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Yeah my Google account pretty much makes the mail/contacts thing redundant too for me. Good solution for those who want an easy all in one if they don't have gmail though....


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Crispy said:


> I can't believe that aiplay screen mirroring would give you anything like good enough latency to play games on.


 
They mention games when talking about it in the iOS video so I assuming they have it sorted...to honest if you can play games over a LAN would this be any worse?


----------



## Sunray (Jun 6, 2011)

paolo999 said:


> Yay
> 
> - Wireless sync and backup
> - Song match when syncing your 'own' tracks (I was expecting Google's music thing to do this too... have they? not been following. If they have, then maybe 'meh')
> ...


 
Expect the photo's storage to be a paid service.

The issue they face for photo's is going to be bandwidth.  If your using a DSLR, wouldn't take many images to blast through a data limit and they would have to manage slowly so your web browsing wasn't effected.  You can imagine that big raw images might be seamlessly transferred but it will take a while.


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2011)

Sunray said:


> Only Google can actually compete on this...


And Amazon.


----------



## paolo (Jun 6, 2011)

Sunray said:


> 25 quid to convert all my ripped music to iTunes music seems like the best offer Apple have ever made! *Throws money at Apple*


 
Yeah, that's niiiice.

I'd already assumed there would be basic 'file matching' of a track (when we were discussing Google's implementation), but matching the audio and automatically getting a tidy version is quite neat. Almost as if it's being legitimised 

Does anyone know anything about the Google implementation? Are they doing any matching of any sort?


----------



## Sunray (Jun 6, 2011)

editor said:


> The iPhone improvements are all worthwhile and will make the phones far better to use, but as one commentator put it, it 'looks like the innovation engine ran out of coal.'
> 
> Just about every 'new' feature on offer owes a large debt to Android (TouchWiz/Sense 3.0), Blackberry or Windows Phone.


 
That is a comedy statement.  All of those manufactures came up with 'iPhone killers' in response to Apples iPhone 1 and have been behind the curve ever since with Google the only innovator in the ranks.  All just making me too phones.  Sense UI is a direct and blatant rip off of Apples iOS.

To me this is a bit of a game changer.  It certainly moves the goal posts away from hardware to where it really needs to be, with the software and services.  Clearly Apple have the ability to put any new technology into their next phone if they so desire.

I just wonder if there are enough services they can offer to make it a compelling platform.


----------



## paolo (Jun 6, 2011)

Sunray said:


> Expect the photo's storage to be a paid service.
> 
> The issue they face for photo's is going to be bandwidth.  If your using a DSLR, wouldn't take many images to blast through a data limit and they would have to manage slowly so your web browsing wasn't effected.  You can imagine that big raw images might be seamlessly transferred but it will take a while.


 
For me I'd be happy with the JPEGs (can't be arsed with raw)

Bandwidth a moot point. That issue doesn't go away because of a 30 day limit on retention.

And storage? Well, I get unlimited on Flickr for about 20 or 30 quid a year. So that's my price / storage limit expectation.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 6, 2011)

editor said:


> And Amazon.


 
Yes and no.  I tried for 1 week to get our testing instances started in their East coast data centre and couldn't as there was no hardware available, it was all busy. 

They certainly do not offer these services out for free and given the above statement, I can't see them bothering.


----------



## gabi (Jun 6, 2011)

lol at the claim that apple is pinching ideas off android... yep.. speechless on that one.

i hate apple, love their products tho, and having used an android phone, well... the comparison is pointless. one is an innovator, one is a follower.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 6, 2011)

paolo999 said:


> For me I'd be happy with the JPEGs (can't be arsed with raw)
> 
> Bandwidth a moot point. That issue doesn't go away because of a 30 day limit on retention.
> 
> And storage? Well, I get unlimited on Flickr for about 20 or 30 quid a year. So that's my price / storage limit expectation.


 
Its all about ROI on those epic data centres that have thousands of petabytes of storage.

Nothing stopping them integrating with flickr? I think sugmug is superior btw.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Jun 6, 2011)

gabi said:


> lol at the claim that apple is pinching ideas off android... yep.. speechless on that one.
> 
> i hate apple, love their products tho, and having used an android phone, well... the comparison is pointless. one is an innovator, one is a follower.


 
At an OS level I'd have to say that Android is now ahead of iOS. iOS has a better crop of games, mind.


----------



## sim667 (Jun 6, 2011)

I'm confused about this imatch thing. It matches your music and makes that version available in cloud only, or it gives you the iTunes version completely?


----------



## Sunray (Jun 6, 2011)

paolo999 said:


> Yeah, that's niiiice.
> 
> I'd already assumed there would be basic 'file matching' of a track (when we were discussing Google's implementation), but matching the audio and automatically getting a tidy version is quite neat. Almost as if* it's being legitimised*
> 
> Does anyone know anything about the Google implementation? Are they doing any matching of any sort?


 
I think that it is.....


----------



## Sunray (Jun 6, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> At an OS level I'd have to say that Android is now ahead of iOS. iOS has a better crop of games, mind.



What makes you think that?  The long press (like the double click) is instant fail as far as I am concerned.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 6, 2011)

sim667 said:


> I'm confused about this imatch thing. It matches your music and makes that version available in cloud only, or it gives you the iTunes version completely?


 
It does, it gives you the artwork and 256kbs AAC DRM free iTunes version.


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2011)

Sunray said:


> That is a comedy statement.  All of those manufactures came up with 'iPhone killers' in response to Apples iPhone 1 and have been behind the curve ever since with Google the only innovator in the ranks.  All just making me too phones.  Sense UI is a direct and blatant rip off of Apples iOS.


That statement tells me you don't really know much Android phones, to be honest.

But I've no interest in getting into another of these discussions. What always happens is that if I post up something that isn't completely postive, I'm quickly branded as bering "rabidly anti-Apple" so I'll just post up links to what is being said elsewhere. I have to say that the consensus rather agrees with my viewpoint.



> *Apple copies a bunch of features from Android, calls it iOS5*
> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/apple-copies-a-bunch-of-features-from-android-calls-it-ios5/2295





> iOS has always been deficient in the notifications department, something Android hit hard on from its first release. Apple has finally updated with a rich, powerful notifications screen that, like Android, you swipe down from the top of the screen. *Paging Google Legal!*
> http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2011/06/06/everything-you-need-to-know-about-ios-5/





> *Apple apes Android for official iOS 5 unveiling*
> Apple has officially unveiled iOS 5, offering loads of new features that seem a little similar to Google's Android UI.
> http://www.techradar.com/news/compu...s-android-for-official-ios-5-unveiling-962674





> For iOS 5, there’s a Notification Center that shows all notifications – email, messaging, social media and more – in one place. *It is almost a carbon copy of the notification system found in Android:*
> http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2011/06/apple-launches-icloud-updates-os-x-and-ios/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

paolo999 said:


> Yeah, that's niiiice.
> 
> I'd already assumed there would be basic 'file matching' of a track (when we were discussing Google's implementation), but matching the audio and automatically getting a tidy version is quite neat. Almost as if it's being legitimised
> 
> Does anyone know anything about the Google implementation? Are they doing any matching of any sort?


 
In theory, and I'd never advocate this, doesn't that mean you could torrent like a muthafucker then pay the 25 quid to make your collection legit, a kind of audio money laundering? Be cheaper than spotify too...


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 6, 2011)

Some great new features! 

Why do we have to wait until the autumn for the update though? 



editor said:


> What always happens is that if I post up something that isn't completely postive, I'm quickly branded as bering "rabidly anti-Apple"


Not really.  What I said in the other thread is based on many months of seeing how you post when it comes to Apple and their products.  I was going to reply in the other thread (I haven't been able to until now because I was out), but the conversation has moved on so I don't think I'll bother.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> Some great new features!
> 
> Why do we have to wait until the autumn for the update though?
> 
> ...



Perhaps we could just ignore now it's been indentified and talk about the issue at hands. This crap about Apple 'stealing' from others or others stealing from them is beyond stupid. It's proper playground bullshit "MY toy is better than YOUR toy so nyah nyah nyah"...


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> Not really.  What I said in the other thread is based on many months of seeing how you post when it comes to Apple and their products.  I was going to reply in the other thread (I haven't been able to until now because I was out), but the conversation has moved on so I don't think I'll bother.


But you thought you'd just bring it up anyway. On a completely different thread.


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> This crap about Apple 'stealing' from others or others stealing from them is beyond stupid. It's proper playground bullshit "MY toy is better than YOUR toy so nyah nyah nyah"...


We're discussing the new iOS5. Just about every single big name blog and tech site is talking about some of these similarities, so why is it "stupid" to discuss it here?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

LOL! Yeah play the innocent, let's not wreck another thread eh?


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 6, 2011)

editor said:


> But you thought you'd just bring it up anyway. On a completely different thread.


 I didn't bring it up.  You did!  I replied because your comment was aimed at me.


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> I didn't bring it up.  You did!  I replied because your comment was aimed at me.




I would have quoted you and responded _in the appropriate thread_ if that was the case, ffs.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> I didn't bring it up.  You did!  I replied because your comment was aimed at me.


 
Leave it, it's pointless. Have you tried any of this yet? Turned on the over the air app downloaded, when you d/l via a computer, but nothings happened yet....


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 6, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Leave it, it's pointless. Have you tried any of this yet? Turned on the over the air app downloaded, when you d/l via a computer, but nothings happened yet....


 
You can do it now?  I thought you had to wait until the update is released in the autumn?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> You can do it now?  I thought you had to wait until the update is released in the autumn?


 
Apparently it's available in beta for apps...


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 6, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Apparently it's available in beta for apps...


 
Oh.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2011)

Something I just noticed looking at this image on this link:

http://m.bgr.com/2011/06/06/apple-ios-5-iphone-ipad-2-hands-on/

No iPad app, it's been replaced with a 'music' app. Wonder why..?


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2011)

Good stuff, taken together these collection of improvements and cloud stuff add up to enough progress that Apple will remain relevant and competitive.

The sync & cloud things should make a difference to experience of using this stuff, though I dont yet feel that Jobs dream of making file systems redundant is complete, and there are certainly some issues caused by device & cloud storage capacity. I guess I wont be surprised if the rumours of an updated time capsule come true at some point, as it can deal with the pc-less comprehensive backup side of things, for example with photos where the limitations with the new clould stuff & capacity are already acknowledged.

I remain vaguely uneasy about the ramifications of keeping much that is personal to us in the cloud, but thats the world we have found ourselves in so I wont freak out, just wont be surprised if some real bad comes of it one day.

The Apple TV is inching closer to being a justifiable purchase for me. 

The split keyboard for iPad thumb typing makes me happy, assuming it works well in practice.

Lion is certainly an intriguing attempt to bring some of the interesting iOS stuff to computers. It came across as a bit more of a noticeable leap than the individual features suggested to me on paper beforehand. I look forward to getting more use from the trackpad on my macbook, as I've long been happy whenever they've scratched the surface with such things in the past and I always want more.

It remains something of a tragedy to me that many of the people I know who would benefit most from these attempts to declunkify things and provide a computing experience that requires less pro-active management, are not within range of Apples pricing. At least in this regard with iOS 5 it becomes a lot more practical for non-computer owners to get an ipad, which is likely as good as it gets as Im not expecting much else to happen that will lower ownership barriers.


----------



## Winot (Jun 7, 2011)

So is the iCloud Calendar/Contacts sync going to work even with a PC running Outlook?  I have my iPhone syncing with my work PC via Exchange Server and can't then sync to iCal using MobileMe (have had to rely on Plaxo).  Anyone know whether iCloud sync will address this?


----------



## editor (Jun 7, 2011)

Interesting piece on Techradar about  iTunes Match:



> It's a pirate party mix!
> 
> I don't think that's how it's going to pan out.
> 
> ...


----------



## Crispy (Jun 7, 2011)

256kbps AAC is subjectively equivalent to 320kbps MP3 - it's a better codec so can do more with less. Also, Match doesn't tie you to apple. It creates DRM-free AAC files which will play on any computer or phone.

I don't really see the point of Match as a subscription service. A one-time upgrade of all my ancient 128kbps MP3s, however, is rather tempting.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 7, 2011)

Crispy said:


> 256kbps AAC is subjectively equivalent to 320kbps MP3 - it's a better codec so can do more with less. Also, Match doesn't tie you to apple. It creates DRM-free AAC files which will play on any computer or phone.
> 
> I don't really see the point of Match as a subscription service. A one-time upgrade of all my ancient 128kbps MP3s, however, is rather tempting.


 
Yup all the above, about 90% of music is rips from CDs, a one time use of the iTunes match service could be useful but beyond that...


----------



## Structaural (Jun 7, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> At an OS level I'd have to say that Android is now ahead of iOS. iOS has a better crop of games, mind.


 
It still has latency issues for music apps (which is why the developer of Nanostudio won't make it for Android until this issue is fixed). All my Fandroid mates have battery problems because of backgrounding apps (iOS uses a better system AFAIC). These two issues are enough for me to stick with iOS. For now...(I am jailbroken though which makes quite a difference). A bigger screen would be nice.


----------



## editor (Jun 7, 2011)

Structaural said:


> All my Fandroid mates have battery problems because of backgrounding apps (iOS uses a better system AFAIC).


I'm getting more or less the same battery life from my HTC Desire as I had from my 3GS. Background apps can be turned off.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 7, 2011)

If it requires user management, then it's not a good system IMO. The average user should need to know about 'backgrounding'


----------



## editor (Jun 7, 2011)

Crispy said:


> If it requires user management, then it's not a good system IMO. The average user should need to know about 'backgrounding'


I imagine most users don't give it a second thought, but for those folks who like to have control over their phones, it's a handy way to extend battery life and set the phones the way they like them.

The HTC does pretty good for battery life anyway: http://meandmymac.tumblr.com/post/589510293/htc-desire-vs-iphone-part-4-battery


----------



## Crispy (Jun 7, 2011)

editor said:


> I imagine most users don't give it a second thought


 
Which is why Structaural's mates have battery issues.
User control is great if you're aware of it and understand the implications.
Restricted control is better if you don't give it a second thought.
Android has many advantages over iOS, but power/multitasking management is not one of them.


----------



## editor (Jun 7, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Which is why Structaural's mates have battery issues.
> User control is great if you're aware of it and understand the implications.
> Restricted control is better if you don't give it a second thought.
> Android has many advantages over iOS, but power/multitasking management is not one of them.


You'll find no shortage of people complaining about iPhone battery issues too. That's what happens when those pesky users start installing power hungry apps all over the shop. At least Android users can change the battery.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 7, 2011)

Crispy said:


> 256kbps AAC is subjectively equivalent to 320kbps MP3 - it's a better codec so can do more with less. Also, Match doesn't tie you to apple. It creates DRM-free AAC files which will play on any computer or phone.
> 
> I don't really see the point of Match as a subscription service. A one-time upgrade of all my ancient 128kbps MP3s, however, is rather tempting.



Tempting?  

I am virtually camping outside Apple, to virtually high five them when they convert all 120Gb of my music to 256kbs AAC files and all the artwork.


----------



## editor (Jun 7, 2011)

Crispy said:


> I don't really see the point of Match as a subscription service. A one-time upgrade of all my ancient 128kbps MP3s, however, is rather tempting.


Indeed. It's a pretty amazing deal for people tied up to iTunes, although I wonder how their shiny new data centre and network providers are going to cope if folks start uploading their multi-GB music collections en masse.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 7, 2011)

editor said:


> You'll find no shortage of people complaining about iPhone battery issues too. That's what happens when those pesky users start installing power hungry apps all over the shop. At least Android users can change the battery.


 
The problems with running power-hungry apps in the foreground are common to both platforms. The problems with running power-hungry apps in the background is worse on Android, due to the unregulated nature of it.


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## ChrisFilter (Jun 7, 2011)

I get two days (well, 36 hours) out of my Dell Streak with its 5" screen with all settings on and 2-3 hours of web browsing in that time. It does have a very good battery though, tbf.


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## editor (Jun 7, 2011)

Sunray said:


> I am virtually camping outside Apple, to virtually high five them when they convert all 120Gb of my music to 256kbs AAC files and all the artwork.


I suspect you'll have lots of time for lots of extended high fiving while you wait for that lot to upload! How many songs have you got?!


----------



## Crispy (Jun 7, 2011)

editor said:


> Indeed. It's a pretty amazing deal for people tied up to iTunes, although I wonder how their shiny new data centre and network providers are going to cope if folks start uploading their multi-GB music collections en masse.


 
The service won't be syncing music that can't be replicated by music already available in the iTunes catalogue, which will cut most of those huge libraries down to size at a stroke. It's google that has to worry about bandwidth, unless they introduce a similar system.

You don't even have to be tied to itunes. If you want to upgrade your motley MP3s to high quality files, index them in itunes, pay for the upgrade, download the AACs, then uninstall it.


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## Crispy (Jun 7, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> I get two days (well, 36 hours) out of my Dell Streak with its 5" screen with all settings on and 2-3 hours of web browsing in that time. It does have a very good battery though, tbf.


 
Also, you are a tech-savvy power user who can keep their apps in check


----------



## Sunray (Jun 7, 2011)

15,000 or so. 

You were not paying attention to the key note, no upload needed. 

Its got some clever matching algorithm to work out what each song was and just make it available on iTunes in the cloud.


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## Structaural (Jun 7, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> I get two days (well, 36 hours) out of my Dell Streak with its 5" screen with all settings on and 2-3 hours of web browsing in that time. It does have a very good battery though, tbf.


 
That's a tablet though, a lot more space for battery and probably pales compared to the iPad.

Anyway anecdote is not data, the multi-tasking implementation on iOS is just more efficient because of its limitations. 

As I said, this is what's important to me, I use a lot of music apps on my phone, more fun than gaming for me and a 50ms latency on, say a drum pad is no good. Same reason Amplitude haven't ported iRig to the platform.

That notification system looks great, I couldn't give a toss who they nicked it off, everyone else nicks Apple's ideas (like Android itself, Eric Schmidt was on Apple's board of directors when the iPhone was being developed).


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## Structaural (Jun 7, 2011)

editor said:


> I suspect you'll have lots of time for lots of extended high fiving while you wait for that lot to upload! How many songs have you got?!


 
They aren't uploaded, they are 'matched' and then made available.


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## skyscraper101 (Jun 7, 2011)

But...

Surely this 'matching' service is only good for:

- music which already exists on the iTunes music store
- tunes that are of less quality than 256kbs AAC
- people who are happy to have their music replaced by AAC format (not me)

Apple don't even have half of what exists in my collection which includes hours of old nineties mixtapes, bootlegs, unauthorised concerts, free magazine CDs (ripped to MP3), vinyl conversions, or many hours of 'only released on CD' tracks which I have painstakingly ripped to VBR 356kbps MP3s years ago. And I'm not just talking ultra rare albums for music geeks and audiophiles either - a quick check of the iTunes music store reveals that that 'Now That's What I Call Music' series only goes back to 'Now 70', and the rather good 90s indie-comp collection 'Shine' doesn't even exist. 

For anything that does officially exist now on the iTunes music store, I have already migrated over to Spotify where it comes with all the artwork and is a lot less bloated than iTunes. In fact I've taken to just dragging tunes which don't exist on Spotify straight into its player as it's a lot less cumbersome than iTunes.

So, apart from it being a nifty way to store my entire music collection in iCloud (which actually is a good thing to ensure against local hard drive crashes, but one that I'm sure will also be rivalled by google), why is everyone getting so hyper about this?


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## sim667 (Jun 7, 2011)

Sunray said:


> 15,000 or so.
> 
> You were not paying attention to the key note, no upload needed.
> 
> Its got some clever matching algorithm to work out what each song was and just make it available on iTunes in the cloud.


 
You could just pay nothing and install zumocast though.


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## Structaural (Jun 7, 2011)

Or Orb. Both shit compared to Simplify Media that got discontinued...


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 7, 2011)

Presumably if the checksum of your music file matches something else somebody else has uploaded, it just matches it to that. So you just don't want to be the _first_ person to upload your cover CDs.

Personally, as I've said before, I'm not that fussed by the idea of uploading all my music to the cloud generally. I wasn't particularly interested in Google's or Amazon's and while this seems better I'm not particularly interested in it either. _Document_ sync between multiple devices, with lots of nice friendly APIs, now, that's useful, particularly combined with proper versioning.


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## editor (Jun 7, 2011)

Structaural said:


> Or Orb. Both shit compared to Simplify Media that got discontinued...


What will win the day is the way that Apple will seamlessly integrate the whole thing together in a beautifully consumer-friendly package that will make the alternative offerings look clunky in comparison. 

It's what they're absolute geniuses at, even if their innovation seems to have dried up a bit of late.


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## ChrisFilter (Jun 7, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Also, you are a tech-savvy power user who can keep their apps in check


 
I did before Android 2.2 made app management redundant.

Also, Structaural, it's a big phone rather than a small tablet, but point taken.


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## Structaural (Jun 7, 2011)

Well Google bought Simplify Media (give me my 7 quid back : http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/20/go...ower-music-syncing-for-new-itunes-competitor/ for their music thingey..

I'm a premium Spotify user too, but I like the idea of being able to access the majority of my own collection from anywhere and lots of stuff is missing from Spotify (especially since Apple got into streaming music). I hardly ever sync my iphone (mainly as my GPU blew up recently) with my desktop and copying music to it is the biggest pain in the arse - I can only do it from my home computer.

I'm quite taken with the Time Machine-like Versions and seamless Autosave (would have saved my bacon an hour ago for instance) in Lion.


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## maldwyn (Jun 7, 2011)

I'm liking Lion, irritating if you have a slow connection to only be available via the app store - plus you need snow leopard to update. But good price.

iOS5 seems very much to be keeping up with the Android-Jones'.

Icloud?? I'll like my gmail and flicker, don't have loads of music on itunes - talking books and podcast take up most space on my iphone. And would I be able to choose which docs/pics/keynote I allow to sync with iCloud?

And what is to become of iWeb?


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## sim667 (Jun 7, 2011)

Structaural said:


> Or Orb. Both shit compared to Simplify Media that got discontinued...


 
Simplify never ever worked for me.

Zumocast works fine. I only really use it for when I want to download a song to my ipod..... or use my library through a web browser on another machine.

Never used orb.

Plex works very well, although you have to set up some port forwarding (or a VPN which is my preferred method).


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## editor (Jun 7, 2011)

There's been some media commentary about the iCloud "piracy amnesty":



> According to rights lawyer Michael Speck, who ran the music industry's court case against file-sharing network Kazaa, the service is a $25 alibi.
> 
> "If you can store all your pirate content you won't need to buy content will you?" said Speck told the Sydney Morning Herald. "Let me put it this way: if you can legally park your stolen car in my garage will you rush out and actually pay for your own car?"
> 
> ...


A reader was mightily unimpressed with the argument: 


> It sounds very much like Michael Speck is an idiot: "If you can store all your pirate content you won't need to buy content will you?"
> No,and I wouldn't need to buy content without Apple's storage, so what exactly is his point?
> 
> And the stolen car analogy is just pathetic, not just because it also holds no water, but because yet again he is comparing copyright infringement with the theft of tangible goods. This worthless argument alone would be enough to turn me to piracy.


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## Bungle73 (Jun 7, 2011)

The FT are abandoning Apple's App Store and have launched their own web app for iPad and iPhone, which includes the facilities to download stuff to read while off-line, and watch videos.  Is this the shape of things to come?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jun/07/financialtimes-apps


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## editor (Jun 7, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> The FT are abandoning Apple's App Store and have launched their own web app for iPad and iPhone, which includes the facilities to download stuff to read while off-line, and watch videos.  Is this the shape of things to come?
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jun/07/financialtimes-apps


It's an interesting development alright. Maybe Apple's 30 per cent bite is seen as over stepping the mark for some publishers....


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## editor (Jun 7, 2011)

Sunray might have to hold back on the high fiving for a bit:


> • *Is the iTunes bit US only? *
> For now, yes. *No date has been given for a UK or rest-of-world release for iTunes Match* (where the songs in your iTunes library can be synchronised with a list in the cloud, for $24.99 per year). That was in fact the very first question we asked Apple after the keynote finished. "No date has been given," came the reply.
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/jun/07/icloud-itunes-match-everything-we-know


It might be up to a year before it rolls out to the UK (MobileMe gets turned off on 30 June 2012).


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 7, 2011)

Took some photos today while out testing something, uploaded to dropbox, got home and downloaded it to view them. Apple's way is nicer because it means I don't have to do the work. But Dropbox way is good because it means I have to the work. Apple = consumer, Dropbox =prosumer/professional is basically how this looks at the moment...


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 7, 2011)

I'd very much doubt it'll be a year, the reason why MobileMe turns off at the end of June 2012 is obvious...


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## Sunray (Jun 7, 2011)

sim667 said:


> You could just pay nothing and install zumocast though.



Thats not what I want to do.  I don't want to stream, I want to have all that music nice and neat with all the artwork so I can use cover flow and not be beholden to o2 for coverage.


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## Sunray (Jun 7, 2011)

editor said:


> Sunray might have to hold back on the high fiving for a bit:
> It might be up to a year before it rolls out to the UK (MobileMe gets turned off on 30 June 2012).


 
Well, I've struggled along this far, I can wait.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 7, 2011)

21 quid for Lion in the UK! Very nice.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 7, 2011)

Looks like iTunes 10.3 is ready...downloading now to try out the iCloud beta app thingy.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 7, 2011)

Well it seems to work as advertised so far.

This video of the sharing is very nice. An iPad and Apple TV is a very nice little combo...Apple have just given everyone a smart tv without having to wrangle with TV makers to have it built in (from memory Google have had a real fight trying to get their Google TV thing going, which is a shame because it looks pretty damn neat!)...



Imagine playing a FPS online via your iPad via your TV? Or playing board games like Scrabble/Settlers of Catan where your letters are on you iPad or iPhone (taking the iPad/iPhone-touch version to the TV) and the main board on your big tv with friends?


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## sim667 (Jun 7, 2011)

I do love my ipad and appletv combo.

They are both jailbroken so can be a bit buggy at times, but ill probably undo all that anyway. Airplay has pretty much made my reason for jailbreaking the appletv redundant, and its getting to the point where I used my ipa's on my ipad so much I should probably buy them  (I've only got apple ones though, no independant programmers).


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## sim667 (Jun 7, 2011)

Sunray said:


> Thats not what I want to do.  I don't want to stream, I want to have all that music nice and neat with all the artwork so I can use cover flow and not be beholden to o2 for coverage.


 
Surely you'll still need coverage in order to stream your music from the 'icloud'

I really dont like coverflow..... I wish i could turn it off...... the only thing it does is look nice.


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## Crispy (Jun 7, 2011)

It doesn't stream, it syncs


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## Bungle73 (Jun 7, 2011)

sim667 said:


> I really dont like coverflow..... I wish i could turn it off...... the only thing it does is look nice.


You don't have to use it though.


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## maldwyn (Jun 8, 2011)

Steve Jobs Presents to the Cupertino City Council (6/7/11)









(lifted from MacRumours)


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## Structaural (Jun 8, 2011)

sim667 said:


> Simplify never ever worked for me.
> 
> Zumocast works fine. I only really use it for when I want to download a song to my ipod..... or use my library through a web browser on another machine.
> 
> ...


 
Zumocast streams very well, especially over 3G, I just find the app very sluggish and buggy, but better than Orb - which seems to struggle to keep itself up-to-date with my iTunes. I didn't realise you could download the entire tune. Okay I'm using this again 

Keep meaning to check out Plex, just bought a new graphics card that supports HDMI out - might have to try it out as a media hub.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 8, 2011)

Zumocast does not appear to have been available - for new users anyway - since December (when it seems they sold to Motorola).


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## Structaural (Jun 8, 2011)

Damn, another one gone.. only Plex and Orb left


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## electroplated (Jun 8, 2011)

At the moment I'm using a jailbroken ATV2 so I can stream all formats of video to it from various devices - is there anything in these announcements that means I'll be able to stream a non itunes format video from my mac to ATV2 without jailbreaking? For streaming to my ipad (unjailbroken) I use Air Video, which seems to play almost anything...


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## Crispy (Jun 8, 2011)

Nothing yet. Streaming anything unapproved to ATV without jailbreak will require ATV to have its own app store, which as not happened yet (if it will at all)


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## electroplated (Jun 8, 2011)

Cheers Crispy - that's what I suspected - I guess I'll just hope the jailbroken ATV2 + XBMC combo plays nice with the new updates or a new jailbreak is released if it doesn't... only a matter of time I guess


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2011)

editor said:


> Sunray might have to hold back on the high fiving for a bit:
> It might be up to a year before it rolls out to the UK (MobileMe gets turned off on 30 June 2012).


 
There is a real issue here and I certainly dont bank on the UK getting the service at the same time as the USA.

Timescale is totally unknown to me though, as absolutely nothing can be assumed from the MobileMe closure date. I mean what has MobileMe got to do with this part of Apples new offerings? Absolutely nothing, all the MobileMe functionality that will be available via iCloud instead can be brought to the UK at the same time as the USA, they just leave the itunes stuff disabled for non-US customers.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2011)

I seriously doubt that Europe will lag a year behind the US in getting these services. For one that gives Google and Amazon far too much time to gain Market share. Secondly there's not often a huge lag on OSes or products between the US and Europe with Apple so why start now?

The reason MobileMe is continuing till June 30 2012 is to ensure everyone who signed up to it before the June 6th 2011 cut off gets their full year. This stops Apple having to give any money back...


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## skyscraper101 (Jun 8, 2011)

Can someone confirm, does iTunes match only match officially released (and available on iTunes) songs, or will it match, for example tracks which I have made into MP3s from a magazine cover CD 15 years ago but were never released for download? So if someone else has also created the same MP3, it will just sync to that.

I'm trying to work out if there's any reason I should be excited about this. So far Spotify does everything iTunes doesn't for me right now and is a lot less bloatware. Cloud storage/recovery and streaming of my tunes which aren't available on Spotify is something I could be more interested in.


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## Crispy (Jun 8, 2011)

Match will only match to songs available on itunes.
What happens to songs that can't be matched is not clear to me right now...


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## editor (Jun 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Match will only match to songs available on itunes.
> What happens to songs that can't be matched is not clear to me right now...


 From Apple's site:


> Here’s how it works: iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library for you to listen to anytime, on any device. Since there are more than 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, most of your music is probably already in iCloud. *All you have to upload is what iTunes can’t match*. Which is much faster than starting from scratch. And all the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.
> 
> http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/


So if you've got a ton of unmatched songs, it looks like you're in for a ton of uploading.


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## Sunray (Jun 8, 2011)

editor said:


> From Apple's site:
> So if you've got a ton of unmatched songs, it looks like you're in for a ton of uploading.


 
I'd not upload stuff. There would be no point, its not what I am looking to do.


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## editor (Jun 8, 2011)

Sunray said:


> I'd not upload stuff. There would be no point, its not what I am looking to do.


I know. You just want shiny free tunes.


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## Sunray (Jun 8, 2011)

skyscraper101 said:


> Can someone confirm, does iTunes match only match officially released (and available on iTunes) songs, or will it match, for example tracks which I have made into MP3s from a magazine cover CD 15 years ago but were never released for download? So if someone else has also created the same MP3, it will just sync to that.
> 
> I'm trying to work out if there's any reason I should be excited about this. So far Spotify does everything iTunes doesn't for me right now and is a lot less bloatware. Cloud storage/recovery and streaming of my tunes which aren't available on Spotify is something I could be more interested in.



I think that its one of those services that it will either work and work quite well, or it will just fail totally.  At $25 its worth a punt I reckon.

Trouble with spotify is that while the client is OK, its seriously primitive and they do not seem in any way bothered by that.  Added all that iTunes bollox that I don't want, iTunes is fine thanks, it doesn't even keep a list of what I've been playing?  I've often been listening to a bunch of new stuff and a few days later want to listen to something again...  Ahhh... You can if you can remember.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2011)

Sunray said:


> I'd not upload stuff. There would be no point, its not what I am looking to do.


 
Well plenty of people will find no difference between Apple, Google and Amazon in this area if the tunes aren't on iTunes...


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## Crispy (Jun 8, 2011)

Sunray said:


> I think that its one of those services that it will either work and work quite well, or it will just fail totally.  At $25 its worth a punt I reckon.
> 
> Trouble with spotify is that while the client is OK, its seriously primitive and they do not seem in any way bothered by that.  Added all that iTunes bollox that I don't want, iTunes is fine thanks, it doesn't even keep a list of what I've been playing?  I've often been listening to a bunch of new stuff and a few days later want to listen to something again...  Ahhh... You can if you can remember.



Make a smart playlist sorted by Last Played Date


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## mrs quoad (Jun 8, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Imagine playing a FPS online via your iPad via your TV? Or playing board games like Scrabble/Settlers of Catan where your letters are on you iPad or iPhone (taking the iPad/iPhone-touch version to the TV) and the main board on your big tv with friends?


 
Ohhhkay, just... btw... infinity blade can already be linked up to a TV via HDMI. I appreciate that isn't quite up to what you're describing, but I'm guessing it's broadly similar in principle.

IME, the main difference is that what the iPad meaningfully adds is a very large touchpad, AND/OR gyroscopes.

If any area of the screen needs to be differentiated / quite specifically hit for a given function, then the benefits of having it projected onto a TV are (IME) lost. Like, Infinity Blade becomes pointless, because you need to hit quite small areas on the bottom of the screen for certain actions. And you can't really do that unless you're looking at the iPad. Which makes the whole TV-projection thing a bit useless.

Having said that, we've watched loads of videos / films through HDMI. And it does look like having an Apple TV would make that lots easier / more fun.


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## Structaural (Jun 8, 2011)

Sunray said:


> I think that its one of those services that it will either work and work quite well, or it will just fail totally.  At $25 its worth a punt I reckon.
> 
> Trouble with spotify is that while the client is OK, its seriously primitive and they do not seem in any way bothered by that.  Added all that iTunes bollox that I don't want, iTunes is fine thanks, it doesn't even keep a list of what I've been playing?  I've often been listening to a bunch of new stuff and a few days later want to listen to something again...  Ahhh... You can if you can remember.


 
Yeah, it used to keep records of every search you did, but no longer. Still I'll still be using it, though I think I'll stop with the premium service - I never download to my phone


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## Structaural (Jun 8, 2011)

They've never sold either of the ATVs here in Holland so it's not really worth the bother for me (no rentals or netflix available, I think they only support the big markets like the UK, Germany and France). Especially with the price of little stand-alone players that play almost anything at 1080 these days.
But I'd buy one for Airplay implementation - that's my most used app on my iphone... but I doubt Apple would allow that...


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## Structaural (Jun 8, 2011)

Ars' take on the whole iCloud thing: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/06/fourth-times-a-charm-why-icloud-faces-long-odds.ars


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I seriously doubt that Europe will lag a year behind the US in getting these services. For one that gives Google and Amazon far too much time to gain Market share. Secondly there's not often a huge lag on OSes or products between the US and Europe with Apple so why start now?


 
Im not predicting a year. But the reason why it may not happen at same time as US launch is simple, it depends on the detail of the agreement they have reached with major record labels.

In much the same way it does not seem like itunes tv & movie offerings are part of the 'download again to multiple devices' stuff, and I presume this is because no deal has been reached.


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## skyscraper101 (Jun 8, 2011)

So 'match' is broadly only useful for matching commercially available downloads already on the iTunes music store. And you're limited to the AAC format. And if you've a ton of tracks not available on the iTunes music store, you'll have to upload (in my case) tens of gigabytes of data.

What would be *much* better is if they could just make the first instance of someone uploading their rare magazine cover CD track, and make it available to you, if it exists on your hard drive already, and they've scanned it and verified that you also own a copy locally.

So it would basically act like the gracenote service for identifying CD tracks, someone has to be the first to upload the data, then after its available to everyone who has a local copy already, saving hours of separate uploads by thousands of people and hundreds of terrabytes of data traffic per day.


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## Sunray (Jun 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Make a smart playlist sorted by Last Played Date


 
No.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 8, 2011)

Oh go on.

Hang on, you talking about spotify?
Yes, that badly needs a Recently Played option


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## editor (Jun 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Oh go on.
> 
> Hang on, you talking about spotify?
> Yes, that badly needs a Recently Played option


 It does:


> To see the history of your current session head to the Play queue page, then click on the History tab. There you will see all the tracks [and ads] that have played since you last started Spotify and you can click on any of them to play over again.
> 
> http://www.spotify.com/uk/blog/archives/2009/07/14/hints-tips-–-history-tab/


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2011)

mrs quoad said:


> Ohhhkay, just... btw... infinity blade can already be linked up to a TV via HDMI. I appreciate that isn't quite up to what you're describing, but I'm guessing it's broadly similar in principle.
> 
> IME, the main difference is that what the iPad meaningfully adds is a very large touchpad, AND/OR gyroscopes.
> 
> ...


 
Yep, the lack of cables is pretty neat, I'm assuming there was little or no lag playing IB via a cable?


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Oh go on.
> 
> Hang on, you talking about spotify?
> Yes, that badly needs a Recently Played option


 
Nah what Spotify needs is a total overhaul of how it shows music, at present it's a terrible system they use, very annoying if you have tons of albums. Great service though apart from that! And this iCloud stuff doesn't look like it's going to turn me away from it tbh...


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## Crispy (Jun 8, 2011)

editor said:


> It does:


 
Only for the current session, though. I just launched spotify and that list is empty


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## Structaural (Jun 8, 2011)

editor said:


> It does:


 
Cheers!


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## Structaural (Jun 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Only for the current session, though. I just launched spotify and that list is empty


 
oh bollocks.


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## editor (Jun 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Only for the current session, though. I just launched spotify and that list is empty


Yes, that's what I posted up! Seeing as I keep Spotify open for weeks at a stretch that's no real problem for me, although there's no denying that the interface could use a sort-out.


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## pk (Jun 8, 2011)

Interesting stuff from Cupertino.

Especially pleased to note their touch screen tech is coming on leaps and bounds, as I'm involved in iPad and sports/media integration apps.


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## skyscraper101 (Jun 8, 2011)

iTunes 'match' is also a pretty shitty deal for anybody who _isn't_ on an unlimited data plan from their ISP and who has tens of gigabytes of music which isn't already available on the iTunes music store. That's gonna be a hell of a lot of bandwidth being spent in one month uploading all that 'unmatched' music.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2011)

skyscraper101 said:


> iTunes 'match' is also a pretty shitty deal for anybody who _isn't_ on an unlimited data plan from their ISP and who has tens of gigabytes of music which isn't already available on the iTunes music store. That's gonna be a hell of a lot of bandwidth being spent in one month uploading all that 'unmatched' music.


 
Yep, but there's no option really because all three companies have this.


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## skyscraper101 (Jun 8, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yep, but there's no option really because all three companies have this.


 
That is why Apple should go one better and just implement their matching tech to just keep a master copy of the first instance of anything that isn't already on the iTunes music store and make it available to anyone who has a matching scan of it locally available. That will save hundreds of terrabytes of wasted bandwidth from each individual user, plus the storage space at their end.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2011)

Nice little preview of iOS5 running on an iPad2. Really love that split keyboard (even though I can type with thumbs fairly well!), very neat that Apple thieved it!


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## GarfieldLeChat (Jun 8, 2011)

not sure  I like white iPads the look a bit mickey mouse...


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> not sure  I like white iPads the look a bit mickey mouse...


 
Yep, was playing with one yesterday, I find the black one focuses my eyes better on the screen, the white one feels a bit odd, plus it looks like the plastic will go yellow or get dirtier with time...


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2011)

Sweet! Cloud app syncing now fully working.  Just hit download on iTunes of an app and then in about five seconds it popped up on my iPhone.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jun 8, 2011)

Android way ahead on that score, they've had synching from the web based android marketplace to the handset for ages.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 8, 2011)

skyscraper101 said:


> Android way ahead on that score, they've had synching from the web based android marketplace to the handset for ages.


 
Not much help being ahead if you don't have that phone really...


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jun 9, 2011)

what phone?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 9, 2011)

skyscraper101 said:


> what phone?


 
An Android one. Anyway...odd tangent aside it's very nice this is available to us iPhone users.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jun 9, 2011)

It is indeed. Synching with a cable is a pain in the hole when it can be done effortlessly over the air.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 9, 2011)

skyscraper101 said:


> It is indeed. Synching with a cable is a pain in the hole when it can be done effortlessly over the air.


 
Totally!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 9, 2011)

...but you could always add apps OTA. The only thing that this adds is basically the feature to see all the apps that you've not installed on one particular device. For those people who order so many apps on the desktop that they forget that they've done it, maybe? (I've ordered one app ever in iTunes, I think.)


----------



## editor (Jun 9, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> ...but you could always add apps OTA. The only thing that this adds is basically the feature to see all the apps that you've not installed on one particular device. For those people who order so many apps on the desktop that they forget that they've done it, maybe? (I've ordered one app ever in iTunes, I think.)


It's much nicer browsing for apps on a laptop/desktop.


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 9, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> ...but you could always add apps OTA. The only thing that this adds is basically the feature to see all the apps that you've not installed on one particular device. For those people who order so many apps on the desktop that they forget that they've done it, maybe? (I've ordered one app ever in iTunes, I think.)


In the past if you bought an app on your computer and you wanted it on your iPhone you then either had to plug it in and sync, or go into the App Store on your phone, find the app and download it again.  And if you wanted it on your iPad too you had to this all over again.  Now once you buy an app in one place it gets automatically downloaded everywhere else, which is cool! 

The only problem I see is that sometimes I'll buy an iPhone app and I won't want it on my iPad (it's not a universal binary); there seems to be no way to prevent this.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jun 9, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> The only problem I see is that sometimes I'll buy an iPhone app and I won't want it on my iPad (it's not a universal binary); there seems to be no way to prevent this.



Good point. But would having something auto download onto your ipad be problematic if you just don't use it?


----------



## Crispy (Jun 9, 2011)

It would be if it was a 500MB game or something


----------



## editor (Jun 9, 2011)

Apple has wisely backtracked on their greedy content subscription policy. I wonder if it's because they saw where things were headed with the FT paper web app and realised they were backing a loser?

http://gizmodo.com/5810251/apple-fr...p-stores-draconian-content-subscription-rules


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 9, 2011)

skyscraper101 said:


> Good point. But would having something auto download onto your ipad be problematic if you just don't use it?


I only have a 16GB iPad and I download a lot of apps (I'm an appaholic! ); I have 160 atm stored in iTunes. And as Crispy said, some apps are quite large, so the space they take up can soon add up.

Of course it's easy to delete them once they're downloaded, but it would be nice if they was some option to not download them in the first place.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 9, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> In the past if you bought an app on your computer and you wanted it on your iPhone you then either had to plug it in and sync, or go into the App Store on your phone, find the app and download it again.  And if you wanted it on your iPad too you had to this all over again.  Now once you buy an app in one place it gets automatically downloaded everywhere else, which is cool!
> 
> The only problem I see is that sometimes I'll buy an iPhone app and I won't want it on my iPad (it's not a universal binary); there seems to be no way to prevent this.


 
Yep there's some work still needed on this but I wouldn't be surprised if they added more functionality further down the line.


----------



## sim667 (Jun 9, 2011)

I assuming it will ask you if you want to push an app to a device before doing it?


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 9, 2011)

sim667 said:


> I assuming it will ask you if you want to push an app to a device before doing it?


There's a new option in the iPhone/iPad settings to turn automatic downloads on or off for that device.


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 9, 2011)

iCloud enables you to bring apps back from the dead!

http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/09/apple-icloud-brings-previously-purchased-apps-back-from-the-dead/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 10, 2011)

Heh very cool. There's a good set of videos of iOS5 running on iPads and iPhones here. Also a good side by side of an iPhone 4 and 3GS running iOS5 for comparison of performance also. Interesting feature of allowing devs the OS months before release is that some are rushing to put out vids of using it thereby doing Apple's viral marketing for them...


----------



## editor (Jun 10, 2011)

Telegraph reporting that  iTunes in iCloud 'won't launch in the UK this year'



> Mark Mulligan, vice president and research director at Forrester Research, said: “Apple’s cloud music service will not launch in the UK until at least quarter one of 2012. These types of negotiations take a long time… For one thing the UK arms of all the major record labels are biding their time and waiting to see how the service affects download sales in the US before they sign up to anything.”



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...n-iCloud-wont-launch-in-the-UK-this-year.html


----------



## Structaural (Jun 10, 2011)

editor said:


> Apple has wisely backtracked on their greedy content subscription policy. I wonder if it's because they saw where things were headed with the FT paper web app and realised they were backing a loser?
> 
> http://gizmodo.com/5810251/apple-fr...p-stores-draconian-content-subscription-rules


 
Good, I was offended by that shit. Daylight robbery.


----------



## sim667 (Jun 10, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> There's a new option in the iPhone/iPad settings to turn automatic downloads on or off for that device.


 
Good good, I quite often get apps for my ipad I dont want on my iphone and viceversa.


----------



## pk (Jun 10, 2011)

Anyone else seen the iOS5 coding lines that tantalisingly refer to iPad 3,1 and iPad3,2 ??

Looks like an upgrade will be shipping in autumn...

Still waiting for that elusive "iPhone/iPad killer" device promised for so long...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 10, 2011)

editor said:


> Telegraph reporting that  iTunes in iCloud 'won't launch in the UK this year'
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...n-iCloud-wont-launch-in-the-UK-this-year.html


 
I read the music side wont due to the bastard music companies holding back. But can't see why the rest of it wont given I'm using some of it now...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 10, 2011)

pk said:


> Anyone else seen the iOS5 coding lines that tantalisingly refer to iPad 3,1 and iPad3,2 ??
> 
> Looks like an upgrade will be shipping in autumn...
> 
> Still waiting for that elusive "iPhone/iPad killer" device promised for so long...


 
Yup, rumoured to be out for November I think...


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 10, 2011)

pk said:


> Anyone else seen the iOS5 coding lines that tantalisingly refer to iPad 3,1 and iPad3,2 ??
> 
> Looks like an upgrade will be shipping in autumn...
> 
> Still waiting for that elusive "iPhone/iPad killer" device promised for so long...



What's a killer device? 

Plenty of phones with bigger screens, better specs which don't make you use itunes. That's good enough for me.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 10, 2011)

Boy Genius Report are feeling the iOS5 love big time!



> After spending three days with iOS 5 on multiple devices now, I can confidently say that this is the mobile operating system to beat. It gives you just enough of what was missing, while still remaining solid (“closed” — a.k.a. fast, responsive, apps that don’t steal your data, etc). There have definitely been some slowdowns in daily usage due to the fact that the OS is in beta, and battery life has no doubt taken a hit, but this isn’t meant to be used on consumer devices. And even with those hiccups, it still out performs many Android handsets (though not the Galaxy S II, that battery is Teen Wolf). Hit the break for the rest of my thoughts after day three.
> 
> Notification Center continues to be something I’m not sure how we lived without (actually, I am sure… I cursed those pop-up notifications every time they came in), and iMessage is everything that BlackBerry Messenger is, but better. Why? You’ll be able to communicate with over 200 million people (and growing) as opposed to only 45 million using BlackBerry smartphones. It’s also a much cleaner interface, and it combines text messages, MMS and iMessages into one gorgeous app. Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that it can be used across multiple devices, allowing users to continue their conversations while moving from one to the next.


----------



## pk (Jun 10, 2011)

Global Stoner said:


> What's a killer device?
> 
> Plenty of phones with bigger screens, better specs which don't make you use itunes. That's good enough for me.


 
Since the iPod took off then iPhone and now with iPad, every major mobile manufacturer has hinted that they will be releasing a device that will "the killer" of the future sales of Apple products.

And I laugh every time I hear that now, because it's never happened.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 10, 2011)

pk said:


> Since the iPod took off then iPhone and now with iPad, every major mobile manufacturer has hinted that they will be releasing a device that will "the killer" of the future sales of Apple products.
> 
> And I laugh every time I hear that now, because it's never happened.


 
Indeed, it's a stupid thing to say, no mobile phone or OS maker will stop Apple products from selling huge amounts, they can beat them in sales (depending on how you want to count success that is) but kill? Not likely!


----------



## editor (Jun 12, 2011)

Interesting piece about the possible ramifications of iCloud computing: 



> During his keynote, Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, boasted that the iCloud signifies the beginning of the post-PC era, stating: "We are going to demote the PC to just be a device. We are going to move the digital hub, the centre of your digital life, into the cloud." This will be profoundly liberating, if you are seeing things from the manicured lawns of Apple's walled garden. And not that it was a struggle to begin with, but life for Apple users will only get easier.
> 
> The consumer will be freed from the trappings of locality. With your Apple ID, everything will be automatic, available instantly, anywhere, any time, all made possible because your computing life will no longer be chained to a specific bit of hardware. Instead of relying on a physical hard drive, one's virtual belongings, along with those of millions of others, will all be contained within a sprawling coal-powered data complex located in North Carolina.
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/12/icloud-apple-post-pc-era


----------



## editor (Jun 12, 2011)

pk said:


> Since the iPod took off then iPhone and now with iPad, every major mobile manufacturer has hinted that they will be releasing a device that will "the killer" of the future sales of Apple products.


I haven't heard anyone use that phrase for some considerable time, tbf. I guess since Android became the biggest mobile OS on the planet it's all a bit academic anyway.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 12, 2011)

editor said:


> Interesting piece about the possible ramifications of iCloud computing:


 
Indeed, this is the reason why I've never relied wholly on Google for everything too. Cloud computing gives corporations a massive opportunity to control our lives in a way that localised storage can't.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 12, 2011)

You can take my porn when you prize it from my cold dead hard drive.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 12, 2011)




----------



## editor (Jun 12, 2011)

Global Stoner said:


> You can take my porn when you prize it from my cold dead hard drive.


But Steve Jobs promised that the iPad would bring "Freedom from porn!"







NOOOO iBOOOOOBIES!


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 12, 2011)

Well I don't want google knowing my tastes in porn as well ffs!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 12, 2011)

Global Stoner said:


> Well I don't want google knowing my tastes in porn as well ffs!


 
Unless you've been using Bing or something they probably have an extensive database of your viewings.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 12, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Unless you've been using Bing or something they probably have an extensive database of your viewings.


 
Private trackers


----------



## editor (Jun 12, 2011)

Global Stoner said:


> Well I don't want google knowing my tastes in porn as well ffs!


Chrome Incognito mode ftw.

It's the ISP's you want to worry about, not Google (if you're up to no good).


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 12, 2011)

editor said:


> Chrome Incognito mode ftw.
> 
> It's the ISP's you want to worry about, not Google (if you're up to no good).



Well I don't think anything is that bad to get me in trouble... Do keep meaning to get a seedbox, but don't know if I'd use it enough to justify it. 

Does Incognito mode stop google recording your browsing or just stop it showing up locally?


----------



## editor (Jun 12, 2011)

Global Stoner said:


> Does Incognito mode stop google recording your browsing or just stop it showing up locally?


How would Google record you browsing say, this site?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 12, 2011)

editor said:


> How would Google record you browsing say, this site?


 
Um off topic much?


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 12, 2011)

editor said:


> How would Google record you browsing say, this site?


 
I was thinking more about where I'd been (pages searched for)  rather then each page on a members only site I go to directly) Hence my comment about private trackers.


----------



## editor (Jun 12, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Um off topic much?


Um answering a point raised.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 12, 2011)

Sorry 

Mind you the tech forum is quite good for staying on topic compared to the rest of urban.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 12, 2011)

Anyway, tedious google derail aside (@Ed, you didn't you asked a question and made another point about the Google Chrome browser, Modding much?)...

Here's a pretty good list of the known features of iOS5. Rumblings afoot of a launch of *something* this coming Wednesday (back to school deal, new Macbook Airs..?):



> Apple Store displays will be updated Tuesday night for the Back To School promo, starting Wednesday, alongside the new MacBook Airs.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 12, 2011)

*Why does Apple have a Safari-only mode in Lion?*

This is a curious feature for the upcoming Lion OS X update:


----------



## elbows (Jun 13, 2011)

editor said:


> How would Google record you browsing say, this site?


 
Google Analytics.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 13, 2011)

Which we do use, btw.


----------



## editor (Jun 13, 2011)

elbows said:


> Google Analytics.


That doesn't _individually_ track the the subsequent browsing behaviour of visitors as they browse multiple sites, and, of course, not all sites use it.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 13, 2011)

It gives enough information to Google to reconstruct that information, should they wish. All they have to do is check the IP address of each page view on analytics, and correlate it with the IP used to log in to your Google account.


----------



## editor (Jun 13, 2011)

Crispy said:


> It gives enough information to Google to reconstruct that information, should they wish. All they have to do is check the IP address of each page view on analytics, and correlate it with the IP used to log in to your Google account.


_If_ you have a Google account and_ if _you are browsing sites using Google Analytics. And _if _they can be bothered of course, notwithstanding the legal ramifications of Google individually tracking users across unrelated sites for no good reason.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 13, 2011)

Those first two ifs cover a lot of people. Google ads are even more ubiquitous than analytics. Even without a google account, they could build up typical browsing patterns just on IP (that wouldn't be easily trackable to individuals, however)

Of course it would all be very illegal, but it's not impossible to do.


----------



## editor (Jun 13, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Those first two ifs cover a lot of people. Google ads are even more ubiquitous than analytics. Even without a google account, they could build up typical browsing patterns just on IP (that wouldn't be easily trackable to individuals, however)
> 
> Of course it would all be very illegal, but it's not impossible to do.


Ah, I didn't say it was _impossible_ but I've seen no evidence whatsoever that Google currently undertake such tracking - and if they did I imagine it would immediately be challenged.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 13, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Those first two ifs cover a lot of people. Google ads are even more ubiquitous than analytics. Even without a google account, they could build up typical browsing patterns just on IP (that wouldn't be easily trackable to individuals, however)
> 
> Of course it would all be very illegal, but it's not impossible to do.


 
Reading Filter Bubble at the moment and it gets into how Google track you and your 'preferences' one rather alarming thing leapt out, apparently there's 3 intelligent agents based at the Google HQ from an unnamed intelligence agency. Google have invested in a company with the CIA also, Future Records, to attempt to predict future world events based on the vast database of information they've built. Funny enough this doesn't get discussed often on here as Facebook and Apple are deemed far bigger threats to our liberty!


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Jun 13, 2011)

topic <--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->Discussion of Google, facebook etc...


----------



## Kanda (Jun 13, 2011)

Garf in mod mode today...


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Jun 13, 2011)

Kanda said:


> Garf in mod mode today...


 
lol as if it's just they them pesky mods were nattering earlier on a page or so ago about things going off topic and they're all at it now... fecking things...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 13, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> topic <--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->Discussion of Google, facebook etc...


 
Yeah I tried to get it in the direction of the topic at hand but when the mods are derailing there ain't much a lowly ol' poster like me can do...


----------



## editor (Jun 13, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yeah I tried to get it in the direction of the topic at hand but when the mods are derailing there ain't much a lowly ol' poster like me can do...


Except the last "off topic" post in this thread was yours.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 13, 2011)

editor said:


> Except the last "off topic" post in this thread was yours.



And you've had SO many on topic posts in the last couple pages...


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Jun 13, 2011)

editor said:


> Except the last "off topic" post in this thread was yours.


 aside from this one and my own... 

(realises he's set up a paradox now and we're stuck in some infinite loop for eternity.... )


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 13, 2011)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> aside from this one and my own...
> 
> (realises he's set up a paradox now and we're stuck in some infinite loop for eternity.... )


 
You've gotta be kidding me (see what I did there?)!


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Jun 13, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> You've gotta be kidding me (see what I did there?)!


 
being pulled into the inevitable black hole of a derail this has now become  ?


----------



## GarfieldLeChat (Jun 13, 2011)

fortunately I've found an escape route.

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/threads/350502-Whatever-you-do-Don-t-derail-this-thread...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 13, 2011)

Excellent, throw the mods in a cart and roll em over there please.


----------



## editor (Jun 13, 2011)

Wham bam it's another lawsuit!



> The goods and services with which Apple intends to use the “iCloud” mark are identical to or closely related to the goods and services that have been offered by*iCloud Communications under the iCloud Marks since its formation in 2005.  However, due to the worldwide media coverage given to and generated by Apple’s announcement of its “iCloud” services and the ensuing saturation advertising campaign pursued by Apple, the media and the general public have quickly come to associate the mark “iCloud” with Apple, rather than iCloud Communications.



http://www.bgr.com/2011/06/13/icloud-communications-sues-apple-over-icloud-trademark/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 13, 2011)

Old news, got anything new for me?


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 13, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yeah I tried to get it in the direction of the topic at hand but when the mods are derailing there ain't much a lowly ol' poster like me can do...



6 posts round here and people bitch and moan... Forums encourage dialogue, which shock horror may leave the op. If I wanted that kind of attention to detail id read a tech blog.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 13, 2011)

Global Stoner said:


> 6 posts round here and people bitch and moan... Forums encourage dialogue, which shock horror may leave the op. If I wanted that kind of attention to detail id read a tech blog.


 
Fair enough, not everyone is bored of Apple threads getting turned into a pointless barney about Google. Yet.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 13, 2011)

*Smartphone OS Preview*

This interesting a non Apple website finds iOS is now not only on par with other OS's but actually beats them:


----------



## editor (Jun 13, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> This interesting a non Apple website finds iOS is now not only on par with other OS's but actually beats them:


Strange that internet staples like Facebook, YouTube, Flash or Flickr integration doesn't even get a mention on that comparison. And with Android coming with Google Talk built in, I'd say that ticks the 'phone to phone messaging' box. Oh well...


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 13, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> This interesting a non Apple website finds iOS is now not only on par with other OS's but actually beats them:


 
2.2 and 2.3 have tabbed browsing, phone to phone messageing - you mean texts yeah?, dunno what an advanced reminder system is but Gmail reminds me of stuff, wifi sync on winamp, cloud does the rest, kindle app and god knows how many other ways to do news,


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 13, 2011)

editor said:


> Strange that internet staples like Facebook, YouTube, Flash or Flickr integration doesn't even get a mention on that comparison. And with Android coming with Google Talk built in, I'd say that ticks the 'phone to phone messaging' box. Oh well...


What about Facebook...unless you mean the crap games.  YouTube has worked on the iPhone since it came out.  Flash is available.....as I already explained to you.  Flickr has an app


Global Stoner said:


> phone to phone messageing - you mean texts yeah?


No it's a separate service.

http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/features.html#imessage

I had to downgrade back to 4.3.3 because the National Rail app wasn't working! 

It was a bit of a hassle, but I managed it.


----------



## editor (Jun 13, 2011)

Is "rich text email," "reader view" and "tabbed browsing" even that important compared to, say, Facebook and Flash integration? 

Android has supported multiple browser windows from the start, but is it really such a big thing if those windows are accessed via tabs instead of a single menu click? You can still install several tabbed browser if you want anyway.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 13, 2011)

So an im programme that only works with people who have the same type of phone as you?


----------



## editor (Jun 13, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> Flash is available.....as I already explained to you.  Flickr has an app


But they're not BUILT IN. Which is what this rather daft comparison is all about.


----------



## editor (Jun 13, 2011)

Global Stoner said:


> So an im programme that only works with people who have the same type of phone as you?


Yes. It's only any use if the other person has an iOS5 device too.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 14, 2011)

editor said:


> Yes. It's only any use if the other person has an iOS5 device too.


 
Yeah pretty poor experience given how scarce iPhone owners are.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 14, 2011)

Global Stoner said:


> So an im programme that only works with people who have the same type of phone as you?


 
It's a text messaging app with an additional feature of allowing free communication between iOS users. Like the BB messenger thing, or like a bit like Facebook which is only available to other Facebook users.


----------



## editor (Jun 14, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yeah pretty poor experience given how scarce iPhone owners are.


It's really more about what their _friends_ have got. Can't say I'm going to get too upset about missing out on another proprietary, locked in, one OS-only messaging system.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 14, 2011)

*iOS Developers Embracing Alternative Mobile Platforms, Shying Away From Mac*

Looks like Apple has it's work cut out for it if it's to convince dev teams Lion is worth making applications for:








> Only 7% of surveyed developers reported that they are also developing for OS X, indicating that Apple's new Mac App Store and integrated Xcode development tools still have a significant market on the OS X side that remains untapped. A full 93% of iPhone developers unsurprisingly reported also developing for iPad, tapping into the rapidly-growing tablet market as a natural extension of their iPhone and iPod touch businesses.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 14, 2011)

editor said:


> It's really more about what their _friends_ have got. Can't say I'm going to get too upset about missing out on another proprietary, locked in, one OS-only messaging system.



It's not, I could easily send you a text message via the app and you'd just as easily receive it. It'd make no difference to you and cost me one of the 3000 texts I get a month. If I sent it to one of my friends (80% of have iPhones I'd say) it'd not cost me one of my 3000 texts I get each month and would cost them nothing to reply.


----------



## editor (Jun 14, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> It's not, I could easily send you a text message via the app and you'd just as easily receive it. It'd make no difference to you and cost me one of the 3000 texts I get a month. If I sent it to one of my friends (80% of have iPhones I'd say) it'd not cost me one of my 3000 texts I get each month and would cost them nothing to reply.


But why bother when you can send messages for free over Google Talk which works with all smartphones?


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 14, 2011)

editor said:


> But why bother when you can send messages for free over Google Talk which works with all smartphones?


Does Google Talk have all the features of iMessage?


----------



## editor (Jun 14, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> Does Google Talk have all the features of iMessage?


Read what he's written. He's talking about *sending messages*. 
But features that only work with one make of device aren't a great deal of use to me, anyway.


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 14, 2011)

editor said:


> Read what he's written. He's talking about *sending messages*.


Well yeah, that's what iMessage does.  Your point is?


----------



## editor (Jun 14, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> Well yeah, that's what iMessage does.  Your point is?


What extra features would I need when sending text messages?


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 14, 2011)

editor said:


> What extra features would I need when sending text messages?


How about read and delivery receipts, the ability to see when the other person is typing, the ability to start a conversation on one device and finish it on another,  have group messaging, and have secure encryption of messages.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 14, 2011)

editor said:


> But why bother when you can send messages for free over Google Talk which works with all smartphones?


 
Why are you bothering with this is a better question, it doesn't concern you and never will.


----------



## editor (Jun 14, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> How about read and delivery receipts, the ability to see when the other person is typing, the ability to start a conversation on one device and finish it on another,  have group messaging, and have secure encryption of messages.


Can't say I've ever craved the need to see if someone was typing a text message _at the exact moment_  or not, but Google Talk can already do most of the above without tying me into one expensive, closed brand. 



> Google has an IM system in the shape of Google Talk and, in the latest version of Android, Gingerbread 2.3.4, it has voice and video support too. The particular strength of GTalk, however, is in its cross-platform support. Gmail users can log into GTalk in the browser, while PC users have the choice of a standalone chat client too. That standalone client supports file transfers, as well, and a few years back Google added group chat support.
> http://www.slashgear.com/with-a-lit...ould-blow-imessage-out-of-the-water-10158677/



Why are you supporting such a proprietary system anyway? Don't you think it's better to have messaging that works on all platforms and all phones? 



Kid_Eternity said:


> Why are you bothering with this is a better question, it doesn't concern you and never will.


Didn't you just invite this discussion by posting up that rather spurious and hugely selective feature comparison on different mobile OSs?


----------



## ChrisFilter (Jun 14, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> This interesting a non Apple website finds iOS is now not only on par with other OS's but actually beats them:


 
That's a very silly table.


----------



## AKA pseudonym (Jun 14, 2011)

Channel NewsAsia Connect
JUST IN: Nokia says Apple has agreed to pay royalties for use of Nokia technology in its devices, ending all of ongoing patent disputes.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 14, 2011)

This threrad has got very very shit


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 14, 2011)

Tbf I think I know a lot more iPhone users then those on google talk. Suprised it'd not pushed harder on android.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 14, 2011)

If Android integrated google talk with the SMS application, and used the most appropriate communication method depending on the recipient, with no need for user configuration, then it would be as interesting as iMessage.


----------



## sim667 (Jun 14, 2011)

editor said:


> But why bother when you can send messages for free over Google Talk which works with all smartphones?


 

Because you might not want a google account?


----------



## editor (Jun 14, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> That's a very silly table.


Indeed. It's ludicrously irrelevant. I can't imagine many people going into a shop and insisting that they only want a phone that has a built-in 'Reader view,' 'tabbed browsing' and 'rich text email.'


----------



## Badgers (Jun 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> This threrad has got very very shit


 
So shit that Crispy can't even spell thread anymore 

(((Crispy)))


----------



## editor (Jun 14, 2011)

Looks like Apple are going to be contributing to Nokia's fast depleting coffers after losing a patent battle and Android could be next on the fast-fading phone giant's list:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/14/nokia-apple-settle-patent-row


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> This threrad has got very very shit


 
Yeah well that's what happens with Apple threads...the 'discussion' becomes so absurd you're left with little choice but to be bored...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> If Android integrated google talk with the SMS application, and used the most appropriate communication method depending on the recipient, with no need for user configuration, then it would be as interesting as iMessage.


 
Amazingly that's a brilliantly obvious point!


----------



## editor (Jun 14, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yeah well that's what happens with Apple threads...the 'discussion' becomes so absurd you're left with little choice but to be bored...


Seeing as you posted up that ludicrous comparison for comment, it seems a bit rich to start whining when people then go on to discuss it (and tear it apart).


----------



## Crispy (Jun 14, 2011)

Oh give it a break you two, for fucks sake.


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2011)

Platform wars, takin their toll, making my eyes roll.


----------



## editor (Jun 14, 2011)

elbows said:


> Platform wars, takin their toll, making my eyes roll.


Daft comparisons 
Make arseholes 
Of us all


----------



## ChrisFilter (Jun 14, 2011)

Ibble
Bibble Bobble
My son John


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 14, 2011)

*Refreshed MacBook Air available late June?*

New MBA's rumoured to be updating today look to be here in a couple weeks instead. Just in time for the Lion launch in July which is great news if true as my partner is looking to buy a 11" MBA. 








> Reuters reports on a note from Taiwan’s Economic Daily, claiming that Apple’s refreshed MacBook Air line will finally debut later this month. The report says that the initial shipment, coming in late June, will include 380,000 units (via MR). Apple’s upgraded ultra-thin notebook will likely include Intel’s Thunderbolt I/O and new Sandy Bridge processors. Taiwan’s Economic Daily also claims that the third-generation iPad will include a display that is six times the resolution of the iPad 2′s, which likely won’t happen.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Oh give it a break you two, for fucks sake.


 
Seriously, you can't post anything on here without the Editor coming along and spending pages derailing and harping on about Google. I aint the only one that's noticed his trolling either. So please direct your comments where they are deserved.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Jun 14, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Seriously, you can't post anything on here without the Editor coming along and spending pages derailing and harping on about Google. I aint the only one that's noticed his trolling either. So please direct your comments where they are deserved.


 
In all honesty I quite enjoy the battle between Apple's Number 1 fanboy and Apple's Number 1 detractor.

*scarpers*


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 14, 2011)

I never cease to be amazed at the stupidity of some people.  Two classics from the reviews of The Times newspaper app, which was updated today, on iTunes:



> Doesn't work with iOS 5  (1 star)
> 
> You'd think they would have tested it with iOS 5 beta version, but no.  Doesn't work at all, at least the previous version did.





> Does not work iOS5 beta (1 star)
> 
> Maybe test it next time guys?



I should add the second review is of a version of the app that was released before iOS5 was even announced!

How can they give a low rating for an app because it doesn't work with an OS that isn't even an official release and was only announced a week ago!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 14, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> In all honesty I quite enjoy the battle between Apple's Number 1 fanboy and Apple's Number 1 detractor.
> 
> *scarpers*


 
Frankly trying to find interesting posts amongst the Editors lies, goal post moving or highly selective comments isn't what I find fun!


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2011)

editor said:


> Daft comparisons
> Make arseholes
> Of us all


 
Indeed.

I do like to compare now with some years ago though. I cant get too wound up about whether Android or iOS is better, because the main thing for me is that I cheer loudly when I compare either of these to the dire experience that Microsoft & Nokia offered back in the day.

So, a few banal discussion on the forums matters not so much really, at least we are free of banal day to day use of these older mobile devices. I've only just got over how deeply frustrating it was to have quite a bit of power under the hood of the N95, ruined by its painful mode of operation. And as for my experience with microsoft tablets, well lets just say they thoroughly deserve to be on the backfoot in the mobile space, with the XBox360 being about the only thing they have achieved in the last decade that presents the user with a straightforward, well rounded experience.


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Frankly trying to find interesting posts amongst the Editors lies, goal post moving or highly selective comments isn't what I find fun!


 
I dont think your chosen strategy for dealing with this has helped at all though, quite the opposite.


----------



## editor (Jun 14, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Frankly trying to find interesting posts amongst the Editors lies, goal post moving or highly selective comments isn't what I find fun!


What "lies"?


----------



## editor (Jun 14, 2011)

elbows said:


> I do like to compare now with some years ago though. I cant get too wound up about whether Android or iOS is better, because the main thing for me is that I cheer loudly when I compare either of these to the dire experience that Microsoft & Nokia offered back in the day.


Nokia truly fucked it up - the success of the iPhone showed just how out of touch they'd become - although I am intrigued to see how Windows Phone is going to pan out. It seems an unlikely contender, but a lot of people keep tipping it for success. I've had a couple of plays on the WM phones and have to say I was impressed.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Jun 14, 2011)

elbows said:


> ...with the XBox360 being about the only thing they have achieved in the last decade that presents the user with a straightforward, well rounded experience.


 
That's slightly unfair. I'd argue that Windows 7 is at least as good as OSX now and, for me personally, probably better.


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> That's slightly unfair. I'd argue that Windows 7 is at least as good as OSX now and, for me personally, probably better.


 
Windows 7 certainly saved them from doom on the desktop, they got out of Vista hell just in time.

But they are struggling to have a coherent vision that expands upon this and takes account of the way things are evolving. Just look at what Apple have managed with the Mac App Store compared to Microsofts poor attempts to offer this kind of thing.

They need a big win somewhere. The Kinect has been quite a success for games consoles, I wonder if they can do anything good with it on the desktop. Or whether they will achieve a tablet experience that doesnt suck. 

I cant write them off completely because even in areas where they seem to have been much too far behind, eg internet apps & web searching, they can sometimes muscle their way back into the pack.

On mobile phones perhaps they have a chance of achieving useful market share if they can position themselves properly for some future date where even the cheapest phones are smart phones. With the right partners they could do something here, much as I suggested that HP could get somewhere with WebOS on tablets if they took a long term view and priced things stupidly low right now. But HP dont seem to have gone for this strategy, lets see if Microsoft do.


----------



## editor (Jun 14, 2011)

elbows said:


> With the right partners they could do something here, much as I suggested that HP could get somewhere with WebOS on tablets if they took a long term view and priced things stupidly low right now. But HP dont seem to have gone for this strategy, lets see if Microsoft do.


HP have the best tablet OS but - currently - no devices for sale and a very limited range of apps. It's hard to see how they're going to get enough people excited, no matter how good the tablet is.


----------



## editor (Jun 14, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> That's slightly unfair. I'd argue that Windows 7 is at least as good as OSX now and, for me personally, probably better.


I'd agree with that. Windows 7 has pretty much universally been lauded as a hugely competitive and capable rival to OSX. I think they're more or less both as good as each other.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 14, 2011)

elbows said:


> I dont think your chosen strategy for dealing with this has helped at all though, quite the opposite.


 
Quite.


----------



## Kanda (Jun 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Quite.


 
He should just avoid the Apple forums. It's the only way...


----------



## ChrisFilter (Jun 14, 2011)

elbows said:


> Windows 7 certainly saved them from doom on the desktop, they got out of Vista hell just in time.
> 
> But they are struggling to have a coherent vision that expands upon this and takes account of the way things are evolving. Just look at what Apple have managed with the Mac App Store compared to Microsofts poor attempts to offer this kind of thing.
> 
> ...


 
Yeah, entirely valid points. But their 95% (or whatever it is) market share in the desktop/laptop OS marketplace will keep them afloat through all sorts of fuck ups.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 14, 2011)

Some more details on how iMessage will work:









> It offers some new features that SMS cannot beat like multiple address support and selectable caller ID.
> 
> The settings on iMessage allow you to turn it on or off, but by default it is on and so your messages are transported via Apple’s iMessage service versus SMS.
> 
> ...



Nicely thought out additions to the bog standard SMS application!


----------



## WWWeed (Jun 14, 2011)

http://www.theinquirer.net said:
			
		

> MAKER OF EXPENSIVE TOYS Apple has been sued by I Cloud Communications over its use of the trademarked term Icloud.
> 
> The case, which was filed in the US District Court of Arizona, sees Apple accused of violating Section 43 of the Lanham Act, which relates to false designations of origin and false descriptions of the trademark in question, which was originally registered by I Cloud.
> 
> ...



http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2078434/apple-sued-icloud-worker-stars-union-pay


----------



## editor (Jun 15, 2011)

So, if you work in an Apple store you can't say "unfortunately" because the iBorg deem that to be "too negative." Instead, you must say, "as it turns out."

And if you're a punter expect the conversation to end, "with a fond farewell and an invitation to return."

Would you like fries with that? Oops. Wrong script.

http://gawker.com/5812218/apple-store-employees-arent-allowed-to-say-unfortunately

Elsewhere, a worker is trying to start up a union for Apple staff:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/apple-store-employee-starts-union/article2057482/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 15, 2011)

WWWeed said:


> http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2078434/apple-sued-icloud-worker-stars-union-pay


 
I think someone's going to get a nice settlement given Apple's cash reserves...


----------



## TruXta (Jun 17, 2011)

Has this been mentioned on here yet? http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/apples-killjoy-patent-may-thwart-illegal-mobile-recording-50003985/



> A new Apple patent could put an end to users photographing and filming live events with their iPhones. By fitting its mobile devices with an infrared receiver, Apple could allow venues to block certain functions based on location, our sister site CNET News reports.
> 
> Ultra-paranoid rock bands could require that IR beams shower the audience, preventing enabled phones from taking the low-quality live footage no one ever watches we've all grown to know and love



Proper WTF.


----------



## Bungle73 (Jun 17, 2011)

TruXta said:


> Has this been mentioned on here yet? http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/apples-killjoy-patent-may-thwart-illegal-mobile-recording-50003985/
> 
> 
> 
> Proper WTF.


 
I don't see the point.  What's to stop someone from putting a piece of tape over the IR receiver? And what about all the iPhones (and other camera phones for that matter) that won't have this "feature"?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 17, 2011)

I wouldn't worry too much tbh all corporations patent all kinds of shit they never use...


----------



## Crispy (Jun 17, 2011)

Apple patents all sorts of shit that will never make it into a real product (as do all tech companies)


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jun 17, 2011)

More to the point why would you want to?


----------



## TruXta (Jun 17, 2011)

I haven't a clue whether this tech is likely to find its way into phones or not, but the very idea is pretty fucking insidious.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 17, 2011)

TruXta said:


> I haven't a clue whether this tech is likely to find its way into phones or not, but the very idea is pretty fucking insidious.


 
Read Filter Bubble if you want to learn about Google and Facebooks plans for controlling your info.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 20, 2011)

Rumours of the impending MacBook Air update now pointing to a black case option. I'm more and more convinced Apple are going to dump the plasticky Macbook and reposition the Air as the entry level Apple notebook...



> Over the past week, we’ve received several anonymous tips claiming that at least some models of the next-generation MacBook Air will be be available with a black finish, different from the aluminum case used on the current MacBook Air and most of Apple’s other Macs. The most specific of the claims suggests that a black anodized aluminum case would be available on a top-end MacBook Air model, in much the same way as Apple once offered a high-end black MacBook on top of the standard white offerings.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jun 20, 2011)

Same anonymous tipsters that said the new Air was launching last Wednesday, no doubt.


----------



## editor (Jun 20, 2011)

OMG! There's a _vague rumour_ from an _anonymous source_ that it's going to be in BLACK?!!!!

*cue 200 tech blog posts


----------



## Structaural (Jun 21, 2011)




----------



## skyscraper101 (Jun 21, 2011)

I would so prefer a black option though. My Macbook is black and if I had to replace it, I would very much like a black macbook air (and backlit keys too plz).


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 21, 2011)

Lazy Llama said:


> Same anonymous tipsters that said the new Air was launching last Wednesday, no doubt.


 
Not sure tbh but wouldn't surprise me..!


----------



## sim667 (Jun 21, 2011)

fucksake, couldnt get the pic to work..... stupid twitpics.

It was the letter of sean connery writing to steve jobbs..... anyone see it?


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jun 21, 2011)

what, link?

(apprently fake anyway, after googling)


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 21, 2011)

sim667 said:


> fucksake, couldnt get the pic to work..... stupid twitpics.
> 
> It was the letter of sean connery writing to steve jobbs..... anyone see it?


 
Nope, not heard of that one...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 21, 2011)

*Apple rolls out Final Cut Pro X*

The new Final Cut is out at a very nice price point of £179 on the MacApp store!


----------



## elbows (Jun 21, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> The new Final Cut is out at a very nice price point of £179 on the MacApp store!


 
£30 for Motion is quite the bargain.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 21, 2011)

Very good move on their part, indy film makers will love this (I'm involved in a project which this new pricing is VERY welcome!).


----------



## sim667 (Jun 21, 2011)

skyscraper101 said:


> what, link?
> 
> (apprently fake anyway, after googling)



Ah well...... shame.



Kid_Eternity said:


> Nope, not heard of that one...


 
Clicky


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 21, 2011)

Apple have updated their Time Capsules, not sure I see the point of them tbh. 400 quid for 3tb for wireless sync or less than 300 quid for a wired 4tb external hard drive...


----------



## sim667 (Jun 21, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Apple have updated their Time Capsules, not sure I see the point of them tbh. 400 quid for 3tb for wireless sync or less than 300 quid for a wired 4tb external hard drive...


 
Only worth while if you have a laptop, which i dont.

I've got a 2TB raid backup i chucked together myself (4TB if i dont have it set up as a raid), for about £260, last time i checked you can do the same for about £220 or something. Imho the time machine is a bit of a con (they've also got a really bad reputation for hard disks in them corrupting iirc).


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 21, 2011)

sim667 said:


> Only worth while if you have a laptop, which i dont.
> 
> I've got a 2TB raid backup i chucked together myself (4TB if i dont have it set up as a raid), for about £260, last time i checked you can do the same for about £220 or something. Imho the time machine is a bit of a con (they've also got a really bad reputation for hard disks in them corrupting iirc).


 
Not sure even then, I already have a small external for back ups which I plug in every now and then then copy stuff across. This seems more pricy the more I think about it. Perhaps if you had multiple devices all wirelessly syncing with it it's cost might be eaten up by the convenience...?


----------



## Winot (Jun 21, 2011)

I seem to remember Time Capsule is the only way of doing wireless Time Machine backups.


----------



## sim667 (Jun 21, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Not sure even then, I already have a small external for back ups which I plug in every now and then then copy stuff across. This seems more pricy the more I think about it. Perhaps if you had multiple devices all wirelessly syncing with it it's cost might be eaten up by the convenience...?



Yeah sure, price vs convenience balances it out a bit, but thats the same with all apple products isnt it.

My main issue is ive read a lot about time capsule hard drives borking....... Not something I want my backup disk to be doing.


----------



## editor (Jun 23, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> The new Final Cut is out at a very nice price point of £179 on the MacApp store![/IMG]


The updated app has not gone down well with a lot of people and there's been one hell of a backlash. CNN have called it a "debacle," and half of the reviews in the App Store have been negative, with one user even calling it 'Windows Vista' - and cusses don't come much worse than that!



> Further complaints focus on the lack of support for existing third-party plugins, missing output support for professional audio formats, stability issues, and there are countless others I don’t have space to feature in this short post....
> 
> Apple’s response to the question of importing old projects at the briefing was to either run the two applications side by side, or buy the software and hope for a third-party solution for the conversion and import of older projects. It has also promised improvements that will add more Pro features in the coming months.
> 
> ...





> All in all the worst product launch I’ve ever seen from Apple or pretty much any software manufacturer. Instead of a nice suite of applications that worked well together (FCP, Color, Motion, SoundTrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro) you now have one big app that really doesn’t do all that much well. It completely ignores the 11 years of existence by giving you zero options to open older projects. We called it iMovie Pro when it was debuted back in April and quite honestly, that’s what it is.



http://daringfireball.net/2011/06/final_cut_pro_x_backlash


----------



## Crispy (Jun 23, 2011)

Apple are not stupid. Expect the missing features to be patched in within a year. Import of older projects and better tape handling have already been confirmed for future updates.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 23, 2011)

It was guaranteed that there would be a huge backlash to any UI change, let alone conceptual changes. It will take a while to sort through what are just whinges about differences in UI and workflow and what are valid complaints - and professional users of that sort of software, be it video editing, 3D or whatever are some of the worst whingers ever IME, they're smug about having learnt the existing illogical way that it works and have convinced themselves that it all makes sense.

The existing Final Cut has an absolutely dire UI. Unless you've used it over years it makes no sense at all. Software should not take apprenticeship to understand. While I've only got passing familiarity with video editing I've seen the same with tools that I do use like 3D modelling and animation, and software IDEs; there are people who will try to tell you that Blender's (old) UI is actually really logical and you're just not trying hard enough ffs.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 23, 2011)

Yep Fridge and Crispy are are on point with this as usual. This isn't a big deal tbh...


----------



## elbows (Jun 24, 2011)

editor said:


> The updated app has not gone down well with a lot of people and there's been one hell of a backlash. CNN have called it a "debacle," and half of the reviews in the App Store have been negative, with one user even calling it 'Windows Vista' - and cusses don't come much worse than that!
> 
> http://daringfireball.net/2011/06/final_cut_pro_x_backlash


 
The Creative Cow comment is a bit weird, why are they going on about 'one big app' when Motion is a separate app?

And lets quote what the end of the page you linked to says:



> Lastly, the reviews in the App Store are worth reading to gauge the pulse of those users who depend on the features in FCP 7 that were omitted in FCP X. Some of this, no doubt, is simply a knee-jerk rejection of the new and unfamiliar, but much of it is along the lines of “I depend upon some specific feature of FCP 7 and now it’s gone.” I predict this transition going the way of iMovie’s (and, again, Mac OS X’s) — with a two-year transition where the previous Final Cut Pro suite remains available, whilst the new Final Cut Pro X suite regains lost features.



I dont know how this will all turn out. There are some genuine issues here, and there are also fears about Apple abandoning real Pro creatives in favour of stuff that only really reaches the level of prosumer. I'll wait and see what happens.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 24, 2011)

Seems to me Apple is smoothing over the transition between iMovie users and FCP users, they typically release something then build on it based on market demand (not hyper blog hysteria of their business detractors).


----------



## Structaural (Jun 24, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> The new Final Cut is out at a very nice price point of £179 on the MacApp store!



Here's a review from Conan:


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 24, 2011)

Heh yeah was just watching that!


----------



## editor (Jun 24, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Seems to me Apple is smoothing over the transition between iMovie users and FCP users, they typically release something then build on it based on market demand (not hyper blog hysteria of their business detractors).


Umm, just for the record: a lot of the negative comments have come from the_ users themselves_ and pro-Apple blogs, not hysterical 'business detractors' (whoever/whatever they are).

And here's some new Apple news: they've started *another* lawsuit against Samsung:
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/apple-files-another-lawsuit-against-samsung-970706


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 25, 2011)

Beyond the hysterics about FCP there's been some fairly level headed responses and reviews...this is one such interesting post taking on some of the 'complaints'.



> In 10 years of writing Times columns, I’ve never encountered anything quite like this.
> 
> In Thursday’s paper, I reviewed Apple’s Final Cut Pro X, a professional video-editing program. It’s not an update of the existing Final Cut, which is by far the most popular such program; it’s completely new and radically redesigned. It looks different, its strengths are different — and after one day of using it, many professional video editors are running through the streets with pitchforks.
> 
> ...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 26, 2011)

*The rise and rise (and rise) of Apple's iOS*

This writer seems to think Apple is poised not only to dominate mobile computing but computing generally:



> A reasonably credible rumor from a blogger in China says that China's biggest carrier, China Mobile, will soon announce a deal to sell the iPhone 5.
> 
> The current iPhone is available in China only from the No. 2 carrier. Such an announcement would suggest a radical increase in iPhone sales in the world's largest country, and one with an incredible 910 million mobile phone subscribers, where the iPhone is very popular.
> 
> ...


----------



## editor (Jun 26, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> This writer seems to think Apple is poised not only to dominate mobile computing but computing generally:


Anyone making such emphatic statements on nothing more than a "reasonably credible rumor from a blogger in China," has a bit of a credibility problem in my eyes.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jun 27, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Apple are not stupid. Expect the missing features to be patched in within a year. Import of older projects and better tape handling have already been confirmed for future updates.


 
But these features should be there from the start, surely? 

Releasing software with no older format import is a massive fuck you to your loyal client base...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 27, 2011)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> But these features should be there from the start, surely?
> 
> Releasing software with no older format import is a massive fuck you to your loyal client base...


 
Perhaps. But then Apple has always said it goes for where the puck is headed not where it is...makes good business sense in a way.


----------



## Structaural (Jun 29, 2011)

Good article on what an expensive waste of time FCPX is for actual professional editors and the real reasons for its lack of third party support. I think Apple should have called this iMovie X and kept selling FCP7.

We have a video suite, our editors will be sticking with FCP7 and maybe moving onto Avid - personally I'm pretty impressed with Premier Pro for my needs, I use After Effects mostly and they work nicely together:

http://www.biscardicreative.com/blo...-confirmation-our-move-away-is-the-right-one/


----------



## editor (Jun 29, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Perhaps. But then Apple has always said it goes for where the puck is headed not where it is...makes good business sense in a way.


Not so sure it makes great business sense if they end up being forced to start issuing refunds.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 29, 2011)

Structaural said:


> Good article on what an expensive waste of time FCPX is for actual professional editors and the real reasons for its lack of third party support. I think Apple should have called this iMovie X and kept selling FCP7.
> 
> We have a video suite, our editors will be sticking with FCP7 and maybe moving onto Avid - personally I'm pretty impressed with Premier Pro for my needs, I use After Effects mostly and they work nicely together:
> 
> http://www.biscardicreative.com/blo...-confirmation-our-move-away-is-the-right-one/


 
I find it interesting reading stuff like that, and there's a lot about - I tend to come away with two conclusions.

(a) FCPX just does not mix with the workflow of a lot of professional video editors;
(b) Professional video editors are a huge barrier to software ever improving.

There are some things which anybody can certainly say were mistakes - e.g. not releasing APIs a long time beforehand to allow devs to produce plugins, which is something that Apple is normally good at, at least with their OSes. That's just "what". But on the other hand, if you just listen to "the demands of professionals" all you will ever end up with is a slightly different version of the previous version, which in itself was a slightly different version of the previous etc etc back to v1.0 in the 80s or something. There is no user less flexible and willing to entertain new concepts than a "professional". It's not surprising at all, the businesses rely on having workflows set up and any changes disturb those in the short term.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 29, 2011)

editor said:


> Not so sure it makes great business sense if they end up being forced to start issuing refunds.


 
Having thought about it some, it makes great business sense (although lousy PR sense)
The 'prosumer' market is 10x or 100x the size of the professional one. FCPX will sell by the crateload to that market. By the time the product has matured enough to be accepted by the 'pro' market, they will have made far more money that they would have pandering immediately to their needs.


----------



## editor (Jun 29, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Having thought about it some, it makes great business sense (although lousy PR sense)
> The 'prosumer' market is 10x or 100x the size of the professional one. FCPX will sell by the crateload to that market. By the time the product has matured enough to be accepted by the 'pro' market, they will have made far more money that they would have pandering immediately to their needs.


Not so sure that adds up in the long term. The pro market spends big money and invests very heavily in high end Apple gear, and by its nature sets down an all-Apple route for companies/universities/new workers to follow. Disrupt that, and buyers may start drifting off to alternative software/platforms and may never come  back.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 29, 2011)

Even the high price of professional apple computers isn't enough to offset it, I think. A top of the line Mac Pro costs £3000, whereas a copy of FCPX is £180. If they can sell 20 copies of FCPX for every pro that's bought a mac pro, they're making more money. I think they might.

Apple used to rely heavily on the pro market, but now they're one of the largest consumer electronics companies in the world and they can see where the real money is.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 29, 2011)

editor said:


> Not so sure it makes great business sense if they end up being forced to start issuing refunds.


 
Apple being one of the richest companies in the world proves this makes perfect business sense. The more I think about this the more I think this is very clever move, this is very good move into the prosumer market.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 29, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I find it interesting reading stuff like that, and there's a lot about - I tend to come away with two conclusions.
> 
> (a) FCPX just does not mix with the workflow of a lot of professional video editors;
> (b) Professional video editors are a huge barrier to software ever improving.
> ...



Very good point with (b).


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 29, 2011)

There should be some kind of UN resolution or international treaty against Downfall parody videos at this point....


----------



## editor (Jun 30, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> There should be some kind of UN resolution or international treaty against Downfall parody videos at this point....


That one is very funny though


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 30, 2011)

I didn't laugh one bit, haven't laughed at one of these since about 2009...they're soooooo lame now.


----------



## editor (Jun 30, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I didn't laugh one bit, haven't laughed at one of these since about 2009...they're soooooo lame now.


Why post it up then?


----------



## Crispy (Jun 30, 2011)

I would put money on there being downfall parody videos of downfall parody videos of downfall parody videos at this point. I know I've seen 2 different ones of the first order, so second order DPVs can't be far behind


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 30, 2011)

editor said:


> Why post it up then?


 
Irony.


----------



## sunnysidedown (Jun 30, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I find it interesting reading stuff like that, and there's a lot about - I tend to come away with two conclusions.
> 
> (a) FCPX just does not mix with the workflow of a lot of professional video editors;
> *(b) Professional video editors are a huge barrier to software ever improving.*
> ...



Good post FM, and a very good point bolded (despite me not agreeing 100%) 

imo, Apple messed up on 3 things regarding FCPX that should of been in there from the start.

1. XML/OMF/EDL export - I use OMF all the time, I've waited long enough for it to become built in as part of Pro Tools, now Apple drop it. Of course I can get a $500 dollar plug-in, but surely it couldn't of been hard to implement?

2. Allowing viewing on broadcast monitor - no idea why they left that option out.

3. laying back to tape - see 2.

I'm not bothered by not being able to open previous FCP projects, that doesn't surprise me, and multi-cam support is due in the next release.

There's a few other niggles but those 3 I listed are the big ones for our use, and if those 3 things had been included from the launch of FCPX I know I would of been pretty excited about it, as I'm sure a few others would of.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 30, 2011)

I don't think you're going to get tape output back. The future is tapeless and Apple just love to force obsolence


----------



## Structaural (Jun 30, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Even the high price of professional apple computers isn't enough to offset it, I think. A top of the line Mac Pro costs £3000, whereas a copy of FCPX is £180. If they can sell 20 copies of FCPX for every pro that's bought a mac pro, they're making more money. I think they might.
> 
> Apple used to rely heavily on the pro market, but now they're one of the largest consumer electronics companies in the world and they can see where the real money is.



I don't think Apple are too happy with the negative press around this, they like to consider themselves a high-end professional brand and Jobs loves to give the illusion he's not in it for the Benjamins. They might not make as much as the consumer devices but the Mac market is still massive by anyone else's standards. Even the 'prosumers' aren't happy, there's over a hundred 1 star reviews on the Dutch App Store and only 20 who are very happy. 
It's almost the same debacle as when the rewritten iMovie came out but at least they gave you a free copy of the previous version.

If Adobe or AutoDesk did this with Photoshop or AutoCAD there would be an uproar. 'Sorry, previous projects cannot be opened by the new version, but it's much quicker'. Well then I'd like to use it with my old projects then!

Oh well, it'll blow over.

wow almost a page of normal conversation...


----------



## Structaural (Jun 30, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> (b) Professional video editors are a huge barrier to software ever improving.


 
I don't think that's true. Most of us on here are professionals at whatever it is we do. Are you holding back development in your chosen field? Most pros who use technology love new stuff, our dept are the quickest to upgrade software and hardware. The 50 year old pro video editor next door spent 20 grand on new Mac's and 10 grand on CS5 this year and is currently on a course to learn 3D software. Though he'll be back in The Hague tomorrow to film Parliament and edit on to tape - as most broadcasters still use this.
If an 'improved' version of an application no longer opens legacy files I think people have a right to complain about it without them being labelled as stuck-in-the-mud foot-dragging haters of radical new workflows.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jun 30, 2011)

Apple Stock Poised for Worst First Half Since 2008 as Growth Seen Slowing

According to Bloomberg (link). Looks like a combination of Google's encroachment on the market and the prolonged wait for the iphone 5 is taking a hit on share prices.


----------



## Structaural (Jun 30, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Even the high price of professional apple computers isn't enough to offset it, I think. A top of the line Mac Pro costs £3000, whereas a copy of FCPX is £180. If they can sell 20 copies of FCPX for every pro that's bought a mac pro, they're making more money. I think they might.


 
This guy concurs (former dev of Shake that got bought and shelved by Apple), interesting insights too: http://digitalcomposting.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/x-vs-pro/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 30, 2011)

Crispy said:


> I don't think you're going to get tape output back. The future is tapeless and Apple just love to force obsolence


 
Yep.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jun 30, 2011)

*Ahead of OS X Lion, Mac App Store Sales Numbers Still Comparably Small*

Looks like the Mac App store isn't quite the success Apple hoped for, makes sense buying software on your pc is a different thing in a way to impulse buying some app for 59pence.



> During the keynote address at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month, Phil Schiller noted that Apple's Mac App Store, launch in early January, has rapidly risen to become the top selling distribution channel for computer software, beating out Best Buy, Walmart, and Office Depot. According to Schiller:
> 
> In the last six months, something incredible has happened. In the last six months, the Mac App Store has now become the #1 PC software channel for buying software. That's incredible.
> 
> But questions have remained about just how successful the Mac App Store has been, given the smaller installed base compared to iOS and long-standing alternative methods for purchasing software.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 1, 2011)

I was initially extremely sceptical about the App Store, but I have to say that I love it now. It's excellent for utility apps that you want to have on all your machines and may want to download or re-install at any time. If you only have one machine it might be a bit less useful.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 1, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I was initially extremely sceptical about the App Store, but I have to say that I love it now. It's excellent for utility apps that you want to have on all your machines and may want to download or re-install at any time. If you only have one machine it might be a bit less useful.


 
I quite like it too, it's useful but it's not got the same level of change happening that keeps me coming back. Forget about it for weeks at a time tbh...


----------



## Structaural (Jul 1, 2011)

I prefer Steam


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 1, 2011)

Structaural said:


> I prefer Steam


 
I don't. Can't stand that thing, ever since it first appeared it's taken ages to load up, the damn thing needs updating almost every time too. Plus it's UI isn't very easy on the eyes. Great idea less than good execution.


----------



## grit (Jul 1, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I don't. Can't stand that thing, ever since it first appeared it's taken ages to load up, the damn thing needs updating almost every time too. Plus it's UI isn't very easy on the eyes. Great idea less than good execution.


 
Sounds like an issue with your box rather than steam tbh. Its been a pretty flawless experience for me since I started using it years ago, however yeah I'm not a huge fan of the UI.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 1, 2011)

*Apple Store Employees Speak Out Against Demoralizing, Draining Work Conditions*

Time for some strike action?



> A series of interviews with retail employees conducted by a labor movement website paints a scathing picture of what it’s like to work at the Apple Store: underpaid, demoralized, physically drained and with no way to secure full-time benefits without turning your personal life over to Apple.
> 
> 
> Here’s the breakdown of the complaints.
> ...



That last one jumps out at me, basically Apple is a typical profit seeking corporation clever marketing aside. Shocking stuff huh?


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2011)

Working in retail sucks. IT retail is even worse because you still tend to get shitty retail wages but are expected to have some specialised knowledge. It was bad enough working as a 2 man team with the owner of a little computer shop, I cant imagine working for any of these corporations, Id go nuts within a week.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 1, 2011)

elbows said:


> Working in retail sucks. IT retail is even worse because you still tend to get shitty retail wages but are expected to have some specialised knowledge. It was bad enough working as a 2 man team with the owner of a little computer shop, *I cant imagine working for any of these corporations,* Id go nuts within a week.


 
I thought you don't like all this talk about corporations on here?


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2011)

I dont like endless new threads when existing ones will do. Anyway I'll only make things worse by squabbling with you so I think I'll just keep out of your way in future, not entirely sure why I spend any time in the computer forum at all these days considering how desperately dull the platform arguments have made it.


----------



## Structaural (Jul 1, 2011)

grit said:


> Sounds like an issue with your box rather than steam tbh. Its been a pretty flawless experience for me since I started using it years ago, however yeah I'm not a huge fan of the UI.


 
I'm just a huge fan of Valve. I'd better finish Portal 2 this weekend, but I don't want it to end.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 1, 2011)

Yeah I really Valve too just don't rate Steam in terms of end user experience...but very they've tried as it's contributed to the digital download sales model more and more companies use becoming popular.


----------



## Structaural (Jul 1, 2011)

It's certainly made lots more people pay for games which has helped the PC Gaming market. And I've got to give Valve props for being one of the first to fully support the mac with proper games, unlike most of the dross we get on the mac platform. It's nice to not have to boot into windows to play a few top notch games.


----------



## editor (Jul 1, 2011)

How's this for cheeky opportunism?


> Adobe is responding to the backlash against Apple’s new Final Cut Pro X by offering Final Cut customers 50% off Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5.
> 
> Between July 1 and September 30, video professionals that have purchased any version of Apple Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer can save 50% off the full version of Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 or Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5 Production Premium.
> 
> http://mashable.com/2011/07/01/adobe-final-cut-discount/


Mr Jobs won't like this.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 1, 2011)

Good business move.


----------



## Crispy (Jul 5, 2011)

video professionals
premier pro

lol


----------



## editor (Jul 5, 2011)

Crispy said:


> video professionals
> premier pro
> 
> lol


You don't think any video professionals use Premiere Pro?


----------



## paolo (Jul 5, 2011)

Crispy said:


> video professionals
> premier pro
> 
> lol


 
PP CS5 has put Adobe back on the pro map. One can edit straight off h.264 rushes without transcoding, and the CUDA support means alot of bog standard post work is real time.


----------



## Crispy (Jul 5, 2011)

editor said:


> You don't think any video professionals use Premiere Pro?


 
Maybe things have changed in the last couple of years, but I was under the impression that Premiere is laughed at by most pros.

EDIT: paulo sets me right there


----------



## editor (Jul 5, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Maybe things have changed in the last couple of years, but I was under the impression that Premiere is laughed at by most pros.
> 
> EDIT: paulo sets me right there


You're very mistaken. Premiere Pro has been used in major productions at the very highest level.


----------



## paolo (Jul 5, 2011)

editor said:


> You're very mistaken. Premiere Pro has been used in major productions at the very highest level.


 
He's not that much mistaken.

<CS5 wasn't generally seen as a credible pro tool.

Doesn't mean that it was never used, but was veiwes as being behind FCP.

After CS5 came out, the tables turned and some FCP users began to feel it was getting long in the tooth in comparison.


----------



## editor (Jul 5, 2011)

paolo999 said:


> He's not that much mistaken.
> 
> <CS5 wasn't generally seen as a credible pro tool.


I'm sure you're right, but we were talking about the _latest versions_ (Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5/ Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5 Production Premium), as referenced in the link I posted up.  And that is hardly lol-worthy software.

It was used on The Social Network btw.


----------



## Structaural (Jul 5, 2011)

They basically rewrote/recoded it from CS4 up to be full 64-bit and multi-core - something FCP7 was lacking. CS5 is a different beast from the mediocre CS3 and earlier versions.

Mind you there's a telling line in Ed's Social Network link: 'After editing the initial footage in Final Cut Pro...' 

Avid are also offering a cut-price version of their software:
linky


----------



## magneze (Jul 6, 2011)

Is Apple censoring user's outgoing email?



> Reg reader Mike Conley, who was the first to tell us of the problem, said that one of three offending messages he sent was blocked because it mentioned the phrase "growing hostility against Frankfurt and Brussels". An email about civil unrest in Greece about the sovereign debt crisis/austerity budget was also dropped. Conley realised there was a problem because he sends messages to himself via bcc. He complained and one of the offending messages was transmitted only for the problem to reappear days later.



http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/06/mobileme_censorware_row/


----------



## Crispy (Jul 6, 2011)

On purpose? Highly unlikely.


----------



## editor (Jul 6, 2011)

Crispy said:


> On purpose? Highly unlikely.


I can only assume it's a sloppy spam filter, but the problem seems real enough: 


> Samuel Herschbein
> I copied & pasted Ken Rosenblum's text into a message using the subject "Test" and sent it from MobileMe to 5 of my other accounts. None received it. I then sent "This is a test message" with the subject "Test" from MobileMe to the same 5 accounts, all instantly received it.
> To verify, I repeated the two messages twice, both repeats had the same results.
> All six messages show up in full in Sent Mail in both Mail.app and on me.com.
> ...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 6, 2011)

I tried that just now and the "authoritarian governments" one came through immediately.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jul 6, 2011)

How about doing one with the subject heading "Steve Jobs is a twat" See how stringent they really are


----------



## sim667 (Jul 7, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I tried that just now and the "authoritarian governments" one came through immediately.


 
I've never had problems and I've probably sent a few emails that would have been picked up in the past.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 7, 2011)

LOL the idea of it is ludicrous!


----------



## editor (Jul 9, 2011)

Apple calls in the Secret Service to bust artist who took pics of customers:



> Kyle MacDonald, 25, was working on a project looking at the way people interact with technology. Taking advantage of Apple's liberal attitude to the public's use of computers in its stores, he installed software on about 100 computers that would take a photo every minute and forward the resulting images to him.
> 
> "I thought maybe we could see ourselves doing this we would think more about our computers and how we're using them," he told the technology website Mashable.
> 
> ...


Art project here: http://peoplestaringatcomputers.tumblr.com/


----------



## Bungle73 (Jul 9, 2011)

Installing malicious software on a company's computers without permission.  Taking clandestine photos of people's faces and posting them on the internet; no, nothing wrong with that all.


----------



## editor (Jul 10, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> Installing malicious software on a company's computers without permission.  Taking clandestine photos of people's faces and posting them on the internet; no, nothing wrong with that all.


_Secret Service and prison sentence_ bad, do you think?


----------



## Bungle73 (Jul 10, 2011)

editor said:


> _Secret Service and prison sentence_ bad, do you think?


From this article you posted:



> As well as protecting the President, the Secret Service investigates computer crime.



So them investigating something like this is not unusual.   Quite why they have assigned their SS that role I have no idea.

Also the article states he COULD face 20 years in jail, that doesn't mean to say he will; that's probably just the maximum sentence that could be imposed for the crime he comitted.


----------



## editor (Jul 10, 2011)

Is an art project a "computer crime"?

Have you seen the actual piece? It's quite good.


----------



## Bungle73 (Jul 10, 2011)

editor said:


> Is an art project a "computer crime"?


You can't get away with doing something illegal by calling it "art".



> Have you seen the actual piece? It's quite good.


I looked at the link you provided and I'm afraid it doesn't do anything for me.  It's just a bunch of pictures on a web page of people's faces.


----------



## editor (Jul 10, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> You can't get away with doing something illegal by calling it "art".


I'll be sure to tell Banksy.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jul 10, 2011)

Apple's "liberal attitude to the public's use of computers in its stores" combined with a portable hard drive used to be a great way to get free software


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 10, 2011)

Heh there's a great video of someone who figured how to unlock the store info iPad - with the secret screen swipe - and jailbreaked it on video in the store!


----------



## editor (Jul 14, 2011)

Apple now third largest PC vendor in the U.S. with a 10.7% market share, but worldwide they don't figure in the top five, with HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer and Asus the big boys.

http://mashable.com/2011/07/14/apple-third-largest-pc-vendor/


----------



## Bungle73 (Jul 14, 2011)

Apple just put the UK App Store prices up. 

Other countries' prices have gone down though.....


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 14, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> Apple just put the UK App Store prices up.
> 
> Other countries' prices have gone down though.....


 
Yep, currency exchange is crap innit.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 15, 2011)

Bloody hell. Didn't realise Apple was this close to damaging HTC in the US.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Jul 15, 2011)

Fuck the US then.


----------



## ChrisFilter (Jul 15, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> Fuck the US then.


 
iPhones directly ripped off early HTC products so they have no moral high ground.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 15, 2011)

ChrisFilter said:


> iPhones directly ripped off early HTC products so they have no moral high ground.


 
I don't know why morals come into it, this is just business. I just didn't realise things had progressed this far tbh...


----------



## editor (Jul 20, 2011)

KERCHING!
Apple have announced profits up 124% year-on-year after record iPhone sales, trousering $7bn profit in second-quarter results.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jul/20/apple-profits-up-iphone-sales


----------



## Kanda (Jul 20, 2011)

Got any figures on HTC/Android sales?


----------



## editor (Jul 20, 2011)

Kanda said:


> Got any figures on HTC/Android sales?


Maybe you should ask about those in a suitable Android thread?


----------



## Kanda (Jul 20, 2011)

lol, it get's funnier here.


----------



## editor (Jul 20, 2011)

Kanda said:


> lol, it get's funnier here.


Did you steal that extraneous apostrophe from a market stall?


----------



## editor (Jul 20, 2011)

Some doofus at Apple released the wrong version of Google+, so if you downloaded the app yesterday, check that you've got the right version:
http://www.slashgear.com/early-version-of-google-ios-app-released-on-accident-19166108/


----------



## maldwyn (Jul 20, 2011)

On a lighter note...

China has fake Apple stores http://birdabroad.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/are-you-listening-steve-jobs/


----------



## Crispy (Jul 20, 2011)

New mac minis and macbook airs. The 11-inch air is now Apple's entry-level laptop, as the white macbook has been pulled from the online store.

Specs/Prices:
(All use Intel Graphics HD 3000)

Macbook Air
11-inch : 64GB : 1.6GHz dual-core i5 : 2GB  : *£849* (+£150 for 128GB/4GB)
13-inch : 128GB : 1.7GHz dual-core i5 : 4GB : *£1,099* (+£250 for 256GB)

Mini - now _devoid of optical drive!_
2.3GHz dual-core i5 : 500GB : 2.3GHz i5 : 2GB : 500GB : *£529*
2.5GHz dual-core i5 : 500GB : 2.5GHz i5 : 4GB : 500GB : *£699* (This one has AMD Radeon HD 6630M gfx)

All with OSX 10.7 Lion, which is released today for £20.99 which is a _bargain_ seeing as it's a full-fat release (10.5 was £100 or so)


----------



## editor (Jul 20, 2011)

Crispy said:


> New mac minis and macbook airs. The 11-inch air is now Apple's entry-level laptop, as the white macbook has been pulled from the online store.


Great to see the backlit keypad is back on the Air too! Seems a bit strange to describe a £850 laptop as "entry level" though. That price is high end in my book!


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jul 20, 2011)

No plain Macbook showing on the Apple Store now, only Pro's and Air's, so I guess that's the end of the plastic laptops from Apple.


----------



## Crispy (Jul 20, 2011)

editor said:


> Great to see the backlit keypad is back on the Air too! Seems a bit strange to describe a £850 laptop as "entry level" though. That price is high end in my book!


 
Entry-level in Apple terms, anyway. The price is the same as the old plastic macbook.

Also, I edited it into my original post, but the minis now have _no optical drive_. Bye bye media center!


----------



## Crispy (Jul 20, 2011)

Have moved OSX discussion to the OSX thread: http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/th...ed-devices-applications-advice-amp-news/page2


----------



## maldwyn (Jul 20, 2011)

That mac-mini is a bit disappointing, why did they do that (glad I got my hands on one last year).

Here's hoping the stand alone magic-touch-pad thing works better in Lion as it's been hyper-sensitive with my MBP


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 20, 2011)

maldwyn said:


> That mac-mini is a bit disappointing, why did they do that (glad I got my hands on one last year).
> 
> Here's hoping the stand alone magic-touch-pad thing works better in Lion as it's been hyper-sensitive with my MBP


 
Not really seen the point in the mini other than a type of media centre thing tbh..


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 20, 2011)

Crispy said:


> New mac minis and macbook airs. The 11-inch air is now Apple's entry-level laptop, as the white macbook has been pulled from the online store.
> 
> Specs/Prices:
> (All use Intel Graphics HD 3000)
> ...


 
Makes sense they got rid of the Macbook, it had no place in the current line up and they couldn't drop the price properly...


----------



## Structaural (Jul 21, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Not really seen the point in the mini other than a type of media centre thing tbh..


 
I think of them as low-spec iMacs with more control over what screen you want. And fantastic media centres - not anymore - unless you stick a external Superdrive on top. A few friends have them - they mainly do inDesign stuff with a bit of CoD multiplay so not too much power required and easy to lug around. I still wish Apple would do a mid-range desktop that was a bit more serviceable than an iMac but cheaper than a Mac Pro. But it won't 'appen...


----------



## Crispy (Jul 22, 2011)

The new minis and airs are comfortably 4x as powerful as my 4 year old imac >_<
I know technology marches on but it is a little annoying seeing these things become obsolete so quickly. I won't replace my computer however, as it still does everything I need it to. Apart from play Portal 2 and Skyrim


----------



## maldwyn (Jul 22, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Not really seen the point in the mini other than a type of media centre thing tbh..


I ditched my telly and hooked-up the mini to an 24" ACD (wifi mouse & keyboard) works really well and saves me the cost of a tv license as I never watched 'live' tv anyway.


----------



## Crispy (Jul 22, 2011)

Why did you pay the outrageous price for an apple display btw?


----------



## maldwyn (Jul 22, 2011)

Originally I bought it with my MBP and got a substantial edu discount and free applecare, I paid about £460.

The new 27" ACD at £899 is ridiculously expensive.


----------



## Winot (Jul 22, 2011)

We watch most telly on iPlayer on the 24" iMac these days.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 22, 2011)

maldwyn said:


> Originally I bought it with my MBP and got a substantial edu discount and free applecare, I paid about £460.
> 
> The new 27" ACD at £899 is ridiculously expensive.


 
899 is an insane price point, who the hell buys these??


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 22, 2011)

You can get a whole refurbed 27" iMac for only a bit more than that.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jul 22, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> You can get a whole refurbed 27" iMac for only a bit more than that.


 
...and as that has a DisplayPort input, can actually work as a monitor for another machine as well. Which is quite neat.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 22, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> You can get a whole refurbed 27" iMac for only a bit more than that.


 
Yep, this is the thing, don't understand why you'd want to pay that when there are cheaper monitors...


----------



## maldwyn (Jul 25, 2011)

I decided to upgrade my MBP ram to 4GB (2x2GB chips) luckily I read these threads so bought them from Crucial for £28.79 including posted, curiosity got the better of me so I checked to see how much Apple would charge - £160.00 wtf


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jul 25, 2011)

Yep. Buying memory from Apple is a sure fire way to get ripped off.


----------



## WWWeed (Jul 25, 2011)

skyscraper101 said:


> Yep. Buying memory from Apple is a sure fire way to get ripped off.


Buying any 'apple' hardware not just memory!


----------



## Kanda (Jul 25, 2011)

WWWeed said:


> Buying any 'apple' hardware not just memory!


 
Yeah, I think that's been brought up and argued every week for the last 5 years...


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jul 25, 2011)

WWWeed said:


> Buying any 'apple' hardware not just memory!


 
I disagree mostly, except for when it comes to memory, and other various peripherals like mice/keyboards/webcams


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 25, 2011)

maldwyn said:


> I decided to upgrade my MBP ram to 4GB (2x2GB chips) luckily I read these threads so bought them from Crucial for £28.79 including posted, curiosity got the better of me so I checked to see how much Apple would charge - £160.00 wtf


 
Where did you buy? Looking to upgrade my MBP to 8 gig.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 25, 2011)

Kanda said:


> Yeah, I think that's been brought up and argued every week for the last 5 years...


 
Oh man let's not go there!


----------



## maldwyn (Jul 25, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Where did you buy? Looking to upgrade my MBP to 8 gig.


http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/MacOS.aspx

I downloaded their 'memory advisor tool' and bought the chips they recommended.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 25, 2011)

Ah cool, how fast did they deliver?


----------



## maldwyn (Jul 25, 2011)

I ordered yesterday 6pm and it's already been dispatched, I expect to get either tomorrow or wednesday at the latest -  all I need now is a Philips 000 screwdriver


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 25, 2011)

Bloody hell that's good! Hmm...time to get that 8ram going methinks. Was watching a vid on upgrading the hard drive too on a MBP doesn't actually look that hard...


----------



## editor (Jul 25, 2011)

Apple has successfully forced Amazon and Nook (and others) to remove in-app purchasing. Anyone using the Nook app gets this message:



> You can read any NOOK Book you have purchased on this updated NOOK for iPhone app, however the Shop link has been removed so to buy NOOK Books from your iPhone, open your Safari browser and go to nookbooks.com.*



If you've got the Kindle app and want to keep using in-app purchases, the trick is to not update the app.

http://9to5mac.com/2011/07/25/amazon-brings-kindle-newspapers-and-magazines-to-ios-devices/


----------



## Bungle73 (Jul 25, 2011)

editor said:


> Apple has successfully forced Amazon and Nook (and others) to remove in-app purchasing. Anyone using the Nook app gets this message:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's not in-app purchasing, it's a link in the app that takes you elsewhere to purchase; that's what Apple's new rules object to.

All the button in the Kindle app does is open the Amazon site in Safari anyway, so it's not big deal.


----------



## editor (Jul 26, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> It's not in-app purchasing, it's a link in the app that takes you elsewhere to purchase; that's what Apple's new rules object to.
> 
> All the button in the Kindle app does is open the Amazon site in Safari anyway, so it's not big deal.


It may not be a big deal to you, but it's certainly proved a big deal for some developers who now have to hand over thirty per cent of the take from any sales made through their iOS apps. 



> The changes will cut the amount of digital content available for easy purchase from within the App Store, reducing its appeal to consumers and potentially limiting sales for third-party app developers.
> 
> “Everything seems to be changing day by day,” one affected developer told the FT. “They [Apple] are a total law unto themselves.” Apple declined to comment.
> Google’s e-book reading application, Google Books, disappeared from Apple’s App Store and was restored late on Monday without the ability to buy books through it. Amazon removed the “buy” button from its popular Kindle reading app as well. The changes will strengthen Apple’s own iBookstore.
> ...



I wouldn't be surprised if these changes come back to bite Apple on the arse eventually.


----------



## editor (Jul 26, 2011)

As Wired magazine points out, these changes seem to be geared towards making Apple's own iBooks a more attractive proposition. 



> The absence of this portal will hurt some retailers more than others. For readers accustomed to buying content via the web, not much will change. But it reduces the overall functionality of the apps — booksellers would love to have an easy way to sell new products to customers immediately, based on what they’re reading or searching for right then — and new or less-sophisticated users might find the need to make an end-around via the web browser confusing.
> 
> It’s an extra bit of friction in an otherwise mostly friction-free experience. And any additional friction for other booksellers clearly strengthens the position of Apple’s own iBooks. As CNET’s David Carnoy writes:
> 
> When all is said and done, Apple’s iBooks will be the only iOS app that will allow you to buy e-books directly from within the app. But at least Apple has allowed e-reading apps from other companies to remain in the App Store. You can choose to see that as a magnanimous gesture–or not.


And the potential arse-biting is explained in that article:


> Publishers now have a much better reason to partner with Amazon in addition to or rather than Apple for periodical sales. Periodicals used to be completely absent from Kindle’s iOS apps. I’m sure that wasn’t Amazon’s decision — publishers didn’t need Amazon to easily get their content on the iPad.
> 
> Now, Amazon looks a lot more attractive. Also — sotto voce — if more customers start using Kindle to read The Economist (or whatever) on the iPad, why wouldn’t they read the same media on a future Amazon tablet — that mythical device that has now unofficially claimed the “Unicorn” mantle the iPad had in 2009?


http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011...conde-companies-rethink-their-app-strategies/


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 26, 2011)

Well, I must say that it's an outrage that Apple might get 30% of the retail price of an overpriced DRMed ebook rather than Amazon getting 100% of it.


----------



## editor (Jul 26, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Well, I must say that it's an outrage that Apple might get 30% of the retail price of an overpriced DRMed ebook rather than Amazon getting 100% of it.


Do Apple sell them much cheaper than Amazon then?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 26, 2011)

No, this is about Amazon whinging about having to pay a cut to Apple to sell books directly through the Kindle app, and withdrawing the button because they can't any more. As a purchaser exactly which multinational gets my money is pretty irrelevant.


----------



## editor (Jul 26, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> No, this is about Amazon whinging about having to pay a cut to Apple to sell books directly through the Kindle app, and withdrawing the button because they can't any more. As a purchaser exactly which multinational gets my money is pretty irrelevant.


But this additional 30 per cent being trousered by Apple isn't targeted at just 'multinationals'. Smaller developers also get taxed the same amount.


----------



## editor (Jul 26, 2011)

Here's what the super shiny new Apple store in Grand Central NY is going to look like:









> Grand Central Terminal’s iconic main concourse, with its ceiling of glittering stars, will likely welcome another icon later this year: a single, glowing white apple.
> 
> Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials offered a glimpse Monday morning at the Apple store proposed for the train station, near the terminal’s east staircase. Apple plans to start building the gadget shop immediately, should the agency’s board give its approval Wednesday. Construction is expected to take about four months.
> 
> ...


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jul 26, 2011)

Proof, if it were needed, that Apple are indeed the root of all evil - Apple blamed for expensive corn dogs, cancer, deafness, unemployment, war and much more - http://www.tuaw.com/2011/07/25/expensive-corn-dogs-plus-10-other-things-that-are-totally-apple/

You can blame Apple for most things if you use suitable amounts of iWash.


----------



## maldwyn (Jul 26, 2011)

That Central Station store mock-up is looking very cathedral like - complete with genius alter.


----------



## Kanda (Jul 26, 2011)

editor said:


> But this additional 30 per cent being trousered by Apple isn't targeted at just 'multinationals'. Smaller developers also get taxed the same amount.


 
What are the costs of throwing an app out in Android marketplace or whatever it's called?


----------



## editor (Jul 26, 2011)

Kanda said:


> What are the costs of throwing an app out in Android marketplace or whatever it's called?





> Application developers receive 70% of the application price, with the remaining 30% distributed among carriers and payment processors (Google does not take a percentage).
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Market



Google allows developers to sell content from within their apps but takes only 10 per cent commission compared to Apple's 30 per cent (see link in my previous post). 

Crucially, developers aren't compelled to use a monopolistic marketplace where the _manufacturer_ decides what people can and can not put on their phone. Instead, devs are free to offer Android apps via their own web sites and third party sites. 



> Open vs. Closed System:
> The single biggest difference between the Android Market and the Apple App Store is the difference between an open and a closed system. Apple's system is a closed one.
> 
> Applications must besubmitted to Apple for review and Apple ultimately decides what may or may not be sold in the Apple AppStore. In contrast, Android Market is an open system. Developers can directly publish their applications to the market without having them filtered through a central authority.
> http://www.scribd.com/doc/48239633/Apple-AppStore-vs-Android-Market



I trust this answers your question in full!


----------



## Kanda (Jul 26, 2011)

editor said:


> I trust this answers your question in full!


 
Cheers, I honestly didn't know the setup.

They still lose the same 30% then, just to different entities. But also skip Apples review process..


----------



## editor (Jul 26, 2011)

Kanda said:


> They still lose the same 30% then, just to different entities. But also skip Apples review process..


Well, not exactly. Developers are free to offer apps through their own channels and pay nothing (I've installed several apps directly from dev websites on my own phone). Devs who have sold apps via the Android store only have to hand over 10 per cent of any content they sell through via their apps too, compared to Apple's 300% bigger grab.


----------



## mrs quoad (Jul 26, 2011)

Kanda said:


> Cheers, I honestly didn't know the setup.
> 
> They still lose the same 30% then, just to different entities. But also skip Apples review process..


 
Natwest current accounts also charge £1.45 for all Marketplace apps bought in non-GBP currency. Other banks have varying policies, I believe.

I'd also reckon that the top 50 app store apps I have on my iPad / iPod were far, far better than the top 1 google marketplace app I have on my Desire. I gave up browsing marketplace about this time last year, because the experience was so utterly dismal, pointless, and the apps so ultimately disappointing set next to even the most pitiful of app store offerings.

IMO, of course!


----------



## Bungle73 (Jul 26, 2011)

Once again, Ed, your anti-Apple bias knows no bounds.  I just can't worked up at the removal of a button whose only purpose is to take you to a website in Safari (a function that's just easy to do yourself anyway).



> Now, Amazon looks a lot more attractive. Also — sotto voce — if more customers start using Kindle to read The Economist (or whatever) on the iPad, why wouldn’t they read the same media on a future Amazon tablet — that mythical device that has now unofficially claimed the “Unicorn” mantle the iPad had in 2009?


More to the point, why would they, if they're perfectly happy with their iPad?

Google's open system sounds all well and good, but it just means there is no control and developers can release any old crap as an app.


----------



## editor (Jul 26, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> Once again, Ed, your anti-Apple bias knows no bounds.  I just can't worked up at the removal of a button whose only purpose is to take you to a website in Safari (a function that's just easy to do yourself anyway).


Jeez. Not this infantile bullshit again. How is posting up a very popular news item about Apple in a thread all about Apple news equate to "anti-Apple bias"? I also posted up a link about their new Grand Central Store about the same time. How does that figure in your bonkers argument?



Bungle73 said:


> Google's open system sounds all well and good, but it just means there is no control and developers can release any old crap as an app.


Some people rather like not having their choices censored and controlled by a monopolistic authority, you know. Still, each to their own.


----------



## elbows (Jul 26, 2011)

If memory serves me correctly, the removal of buttons within apps that let users purchase content without going through Apple was a compromise on Apples original stance, which was even more draconian and would have resulted in the loss of such apps altogether.

Its still a less than ideal state of affairs, but for some entities the Apple 30% cut is still a good deal, because of what they get in return. Namely users that appear to spend above-average amounts on apps and content.

Personally I am continuing to slowly learn how to build interesting apps using Unity 3D. They offer a capability to publish to Android devices as well as iOS ones. I've no intention of shelling out for the Android part of Unity unless I see much clearer evidence that Android users are buying lots of apps. Im out of date in this regard, and will likely continue this strand of though in a more appropriate thread in the weeks to come.


----------



## Bungle73 (Jul 26, 2011)

editor said:


> Jeez. Not this infantile bullshit again. How is posting up a very popular news item about Apple in a thread all about Apple news equate to "anti-Apple bias"? I also posted up a link about their new Grand Central Store about the same time. How does that figure in your bonkers argument?


Because the post I originally replied to was this:



editor said:


> Apple has successfully forced Amazon and Nook (and others) to remove in-app purchasing. Anyone using the Nook app gets this message:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Which I shot down because it was misleading.  Then you preceded to answer me by going on about a completely different issue.

90% (ok, maybe that's an exaggeration...but not by much) of the time I see you post about Apple and/or its products it's something negative, or that's the spin you put on it....but hey, it's your site I guess.



> Some people rather like not having their choices censored and controlled by a monopolistic authority, you know. Still, each to their own.


With freedom comes risk.


----------



## editor (Jul 26, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> but hey, it's your site I guess.


Sorry, what point are you trying to make here? Spit it out. 

All of my posts on this thread have been on topic. You're the one dredging up the irrelevant personal bullshit.


----------



## editor (Jul 26, 2011)

elbows said:


> Personally I am continuing to slowly learn how to build interesting apps using Unity 3D. They offer a capability to publish to Android devices as well as iOS ones. I've no intention of shelling out for the Android part of Unity unless I see much clearer evidence that Android users are buying lots of apps. Im out of date in this regard, and will likely continue this strand of though in a more appropriate thread in the weeks to come.


If Android's much rumoured tablets emerge I think things may get very interesting indeed with regard to Apple's stance - and hopefully the consumers may end up the winner.


----------



## Bungle73 (Jul 26, 2011)

The numbskull are at it again. Now there's countless negative reviews on the App Store giving the Kindle app one star because "you can't purchase books any more", when the button was just a link the website anyway, and moaning at Amazon for the button's removal, when it's Apple's fault that it's gone. 

I really wish the App Store let your comment on reviews, like  you can on Amazon.  Some of the stuff people write is ridiculous!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 26, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> The numbskull are at it again. Now there's countless negative reviews on the App Store giving the Kindle app one star because "you can't purchase books any more", when the button was just a link the website anyway, and moaning at Amazon for the button's removal, when it's Apple's fault that it's gone.
> 
> I really wish the App Store let your comment on reviews, like  you can on Amazon.  Some of the stuff people write is ridiculous!


 
I'd really like a 'was this review helpful' yes or now or a vote up or down feature too. Too often people review and are either basically just trolling or are so stupid it almost doesn't bear thinking about...


----------



## Bungle73 (Jul 26, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I'd really like a 'was this review helpful' yes or now or a vote up or down feature too. Too often people review and are either basically just trolling or are so stupid it almost doesn't bear thinking about...


 
There is on iTunes.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 26, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> There is on iTunes.


 
Haven't noticed it via the app store on my phone tbh.


----------



## Bungle73 (Jul 26, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Haven't noticed it via the app store on my phone tbh.


 It must just be on a computer; there's an option "Was this review helpful Yes/No". Doesnt appear on my iPad though.


----------



## Bungle73 (Jul 26, 2011)

Oh FFS it's got ridiculous now. Apparently the app is now "ruined" and it is "impossible to purchase books now". Are people really this stupid?  FFS people get a grip; all that's gone is a link to a website FFS!


----------



## editor (Jul 26, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> Oh FFS it's get ridiculous now. Apparently the app is now "ruined" and it is "impossible to purchase books now". Are people really this stupid?  FFS people get a grip; all that's gone is a link to a website FFS!


Damn those paying customers and their off-message opinions!


----------



## Bungle73 (Jul 26, 2011)

editor said:


> Damn those paying customers and their off-message opinions!


Surely you're not defending these idiots?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jul 26, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> Oh FFS it's get ridiculous now. Apparently the app is now "ruined" and it is "impossible to purchase books now". Are people really this stupid?  FFS people get a grip; all that's gone is a link to a website FFS!


 
LOL! Hysterical fucktards!


----------



## editor (Jul 27, 2011)

You have to give it to hackers: they certainly have imagination (and I've no doubt that the same trick will be possible on PCs.)



> *Apple Laptops Vulnerable To Hack That Kills Or Corrupts Batteries*
> 
> Your laptop’s battery is smarter than it looks. And if a hacker like security researcher Charlie Miller gets his digital hands on it, it could become more evil than it appears, too.
> 
> ...


Slightly more hysterical version of the same story with added explosions:
http://www.bgr.com/2011/07/26/apple...uct-flaw-to-be-detailed-by-hacker-next-month/

In other news, here's a video of one of those incredible Apple 'knock off' stores in China. You have to sit through a 30 sec ad first (sorry) but it's quite interesting.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20083883-248/a-video-tour-of-apple-store-knock-off-in-china/


----------



## mrs quoad (Jul 27, 2011)




----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 2, 2011)

Apple have released iCloud pricing, here's a handy chart to compare with similar services:


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 2, 2011)

I've never understood why Dropbox don't have a level between 2G and 50G. I don't need 50G, and I don't want to pay $99 a year for space I don't need, but a bit more than 2 would be convenient, and I'd have signed up for a 5 or 10 gig account ages ago if one existed and was cheaper than $99.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 2, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I've never understood why Dropbox don't have a level between 2G and 50G. I don't need 50G, and I don't want to pay $99 a year for space I don't need, but a bit more than 2 would be convenient, and I'd have signed up for a 5 or 10 gig account ages ago if one existed and was cheaper than $99.


 
Totally agree, I'd probably pay for something like 10 or 20 gigs given my usage...


----------



## magneze (Aug 2, 2011)

You could get that for free with SpiderOak. They offer 2GB free and if you recommend someone both of you get an extra GB. That continues up to 50GB (ie: you can refer up to 48 people each of whom get 3GB rather than 2GB).

It's also meant to be much more secure than DropBox. It's slightly more complex to setup but once you have it setup you can just leave it and it can work just like Dropbox.

Clearly I am a SpiderOak fan. Here is my referral link if you're interested:
https://spideroak.com/download/referral/b5693bdbbbb1eb3c7a56c2e8e7f5d237

(I don't work for them btw, I just wouldn't mind an extra GB)


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 2, 2011)

I actually like SpiderOak - as you mention it's fully encrypted server-side which I like the idea of, and they're supposed to be generally a good company - but there are two things:

1. I don't want to have to refer people endlessly to get extra gigs, and their first paid level is $100 just like Dropbox et al;

2. More importantly, loads and loads of mobile apps use the Dropbox API for file access, and none that I know of use SpiderOak's, and they don't seem to have a gateway through WebDAV which would help. (Lots of iOS apps can use WebDAV too.)


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 7, 2011)

Good move by Apple:



> Users who migrate from MobileMe to iCloud will retain their 20GB of yearly storage when the service launches sometime this fall. All individual MobileMe accounts included 20GB of storage per year, leading some users to be concerned about iCloud base storage of 5GB. These users should not fear, though, as Apple is letting users keep the 20GB of MobileMe storage and is adding it to the 5GB that already come with iCloud. Furthermore, users who migrate from MobileMe will get 25GB of iCloud storage from the start, and will not have to worry about paying an extra fee.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 10, 2011)

So... Macrumors got someone to render what they iPhone 5 could look like based on leak design specs and cases etc:






Can't say I'm that impressed really, be interesting to see how close this is to the final version...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 10, 2011)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA


----------



## Greebozz (Aug 12, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> So... Macrumors got someone to render what they iPhone 5 could look like based on leak design specs and cases etc:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Great news that it looks like they've got rid of the hard button and replaced it with a soft touch sensor.  that should mean Samsung will be doing their next phone like that as well and I prefer the soft touch button.


----------



## editor (Aug 12, 2011)

Greebozz said:


> Great news that it looks like they've got rid of the hard button and replaced it with a soft touch sensor. that should mean Samsung will be doing their next phone like that as well and I prefer the soft touch button.


Loads of Android phones already have touch sensors rather than physical buttons (although I suspect Apple will somehow contrive to retrospectively sue them if this is indeed the new design   ).

I doubt if these are the new iPhones, but they do look rather nice. Not revolutionary, but certainly better than a lot of other smartphones out there.


----------



## Greebozz (Aug 12, 2011)

Thinking of the Galaxy s2 center button   I don't hate apple just love android more.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Aug 24, 2011)

AP and twitter suggesting that Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple.

Big news if so.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 24, 2011)

Er what?


----------



## King Biscuit Time (Aug 24, 2011)

It's true.
Resignation letter here.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Aug 24, 2011)

Apparently it's so he can become chairman


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 24, 2011)

Wow. So his illness is really bad then...


----------



## skyscraper101 (Aug 25, 2011)

Co-incidentally, Steve Job's biography is available for pre-order right now from all good book shops.


----------



## Teepee (Aug 25, 2011)

Probably deserves it's own thread


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Aug 25, 2011)

Heh I'm sure that would go down well.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Sep 2, 2011)

They've started selling the old version of Final Cut again. In other words, realised they pissed off a lot of users with the new one.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14762758


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 2, 2011)

And they're charging the old price for it too...crazy stuff. This indicative of Apple under Cook I wonder..?


----------



## Structaural (Sep 7, 2011)

Stupidest thing I've seen all day: http://www.natestedman.com/post/shake-to-undo-for-mac-os-x/


----------



## pesh (Sep 7, 2011)

could be fun to install on the laptop of someone who works on the move a lot...


----------



## pianissimo (Sep 7, 2011)

Structaural said:


> Stupidest thing I've seen all day: http://www.natestedman.com/post/shake-to-undo-for-mac-os-x/


Totally agree. And they're serious about it too. Develop gesture UX for gesture's sake.


----------



## Structaural (Sep 7, 2011)

Tough on your HD if it's not SSD too...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Sep 8, 2011)

Now this is interesting, Apple have a new charitable thing going where they will match up to $10,000 any charitable donation an employer makes, starting in the US and aiming to role out in other countries.

Guess that will shut up all the fandroid types who have so morallistically condemned Apple for being less than Ghandi like in the past...either that or they'll probably try and console themselves with the line that this would have never happened under Jobs (pure evil donchaknow) etc...



> _Team: _
> 
> _I am very happy to announce that we are kicking off a matching gift program for charitable donations. We are all really inspired by the generosity of our co-workers who give back to the community and this program is going to help that individual giving go even farther. _
> 
> ...


----------



## editor (Sep 8, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Now this is interesting, Apple have a new charitable thing going where they will match up to $10,000 any charitable donation an employer makes, starting in the US and aiming to role out in other countries.
> 
> Guess that will shut up all the fandroid types who have so morallistically condemned Apple for being less than Ghandi like in the past...either that or they'll probably try and console themselves with the line that this would have never happened under Jobs (pure evil donchaknow) etc...


You don't have to be a "fandroid type" (whatever that is) to wonder whether the world's richest tech company appears to have any interest in donating some of their vast riches towards the less fortunate.

FYI:





> Record Mac, iPhone, iPad Sales Drive Highest Revenue and Earnings Ever
> Revenue Grows 71 Percent; Earnings Grow 78 Percent
> 
> The Company posted record revenue of $26.74 billion and record net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $15.68 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion, or $3.67 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38.5 percent compared to 40.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
> http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/01/18Apple-Reports-First-Quarter-Results.html


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2011)

Lame. We shouldn't have to call on the rich to be altruistic, they simply shouldn't be allowed to get so rich in the first place, tax it out of them.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2011)

I mean, its far too much like the old days where the powerful & rich can blow more smoke up their ass by choosing which causes to help and then going round with a dodgy moralising sense of civic duty. Bollocks, I don't wanna see more Bono's thanks very much.


----------



## editor (Sep 9, 2011)

elbows said:


> Lame. We shouldn't have to call on the rich to be altruistic, they simply shouldn't be allowed to get so rich in the first place, tax it out of them.


Seeing as that's hugely unlikely to happen any time soon, surely as consumers we should both lobby for obscenely rich corporates to share their vast wealth with the less needy and also make our product buying decisions be informed by their ethics (or lack of)?


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2011)

Each to their own, I can't stomach that myself as it usually just adds to the corporate veneer of respectability.


----------



## editor (Sep 9, 2011)

elbows said:


> Each to their own, I can't stomach that myself as it usually just adds to the corporate veneer of respectability.


So you'd prefer it stinking rich companies don't give anything at all to charity for fear of it being misconstrued as an attempt at gaining a veneer of respectability?


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2011)

I certainly don't believe that charity should be about other peoples expectations, something that people or companies feel pressurised into doing by those with a bogus moral agenda, no.


----------



## editor (Sep 9, 2011)

elbows said:


> I certainly don't believe that charity should be about other peoples expectations, something that people or companies feel pressurised into doing by those with a bogus moral agenda, no.


So you don't feel that obscenely rich corporates - particularly ones seen as 'cool' by the younger generation - should have any kind of moral obligation to lead by example, and it's unfair to criticise them for trousering all the cash for themselves?

How about the environment? Do you think big corporates shouldn't have to be pressured in any way at all by green concerns and instead should be free to concentrate on maximising their profits?

What's this "bogus moral agenda" by the way, and how does it relate to whether rich companies give money to charities or not?


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2011)

Bogus moral agenda relates in this case to you specifically, because I don't remember you giving many other corporations a hard time about their lack of charity. Yes its perfectly possible to claim that Apple are worthy of special attention because of the scale of cash reserves they have built up, but many dozens of your prior posts have left me with an impression that I just cannot shake.

I don't believe obscenely rich corporations, or poor ones, can really lead be example, their very existence and nature runs contrary to many of my beliefs. If we factor in environmental consequences then I see no way for them to really do more good than harm. They can improve on their current performance, but they are still part of the problem because they encourage consumption and they don't make products that are designed to last a sane amount of time given how much energy etc is used in their manufacture.

I admit that sometimes I can be too cynical, especially when it comes to charity. Its still worth trying to make things a bit better by any means possible. I just don't have the stomach for certain forms of this myself, I believe in pressuring companies through legislation, taxation, etc. Moral pressure is usually not enough to ensure that self-regulation is as scrupulous as regulation from outside, and I apply the same sort of feelings to the concept of corporate charity.

I especially hate a form of charity that Apple have used in the past, where people are encouraged to purchase a particular product in order to contribute to a worthy cause. I'm thinking of red products in support of the battle against AIDS.

However I do freely accept that some actual good comes from some of the things Im bitching about, I won't completely condemn others if they want to support such things, but I am more than prepared to explain my own personal stance on this. Unfortunately I cannot give you the benefit of the doubt because as already explained, in my eyes you've created a reputation for yourself when it comes to your Apple stance. But no, you never want to acknowledge that properly or accept it as an understandable consequence of your opinions. I don't think its a crime to hate Apple, but what really winds me up is the pretence, the denial, the attempts to take moral high ground by attaching your Apple hate to some noble cause. I don't want you to start loving Apple, I want you to drop the tedious defence, be proud of your stance, warts and all, and give me a break from this tedium.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2011)

Also I would ilk to explain that my ranting about you and Apple is actually about something far broader that has always wound me up. I don't know why so many humans have to convince themselves and everyone else that they aren't biased, or try to play down the extent to which their bias counts for something. Thats what drives me nuts, its nothing personal except you remind me of this stuff with almost every post you make.

I've said before that I am biased in favour of all sorts of Apple products, for a number of reasons that I won't drone on about again right now. Trying to live up to my own standards, I must ask does this bias of mine contribute to my annoyance with your posts? I think it must, but I'm sure I've blown more than one braincell trying to reason with you about this stuff in the past so who knows why I am bothering again now.


----------



## editor (Sep 9, 2011)

elbows said:


> Bogus moral agenda relates in this case to you specifically, because I don't remember you giving many other corporations a hard time about their lack of charity. Yes its perfectly possible to claim that Apple are worthy of special attention because of the scale of cash reserves they have built up, but many dozens of your prior posts have left me with an impression that I just cannot shake.


Apple are the biggest, richest tech company on the planet who regularly breathlessly brag about their increasing pot of cash at keynote speeches. They're also perceived as one of the coolest companies on the planet so I'd like to think that given their position, they'd be leading by example when it comes to charitable donations and the environment. Instead, they're one of the worst.

I've warmly praised Apple's products endlessly, but it is a bit weird how criticising their _business practices,_ greed and poor environmental record somehow means I must be derided and dismissed as a "hater."

I find it even weirder how any can defend the position of obscenely rich companies refusing to give any money to charity and being the worst in class when it comes to their environmental record.

I'll be happy to slag off other poorly performing companies too, but given that Apple has the biggest bag of cash and the coolest image of all, they're a legitimate place to start.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2011)

Fine, start there if you like, but don't end there or you'll be backing up my point.

Who is defending Apples position? Not me, I hope that should be perfectly clear from many of the things I have said. I don't think they are a cool company, I find them creepy. Some of their products are great, and I have been well-conditioned towards heavy tech-consumption,and I'm a geek and a developer. But Im driven more than a bit crazy by the world I have grown up in, the prevailing ideologies, attitudes, distribution of wealth. Your posts don't wind me up at all by comparison to these big issues, so Im going to stop now. Direct your anger wherever you like, just don't act like its moral outrage that my anger points in a slightly different direction to yours, and I will try hard to do likewise.


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 9, 2011)

elbows said:


> Lame. We shouldn't have to call on the rich to be altruistic, they simply shouldn't be allowed to get so rich in the first place, tax it out of them.



Well there you go...you can't stop corporations following the profit motive in fact it's illegal for them to do so. All this hysteria about 'good' rich people or companies is bullshit.


----------



## editor (Sep 14, 2011)

The big censor stick has been out again.


> Phone Story, an iOS game designed to highlight workers rights issues in the supply chain and production of Apple's iPhone, has been removed from the App Store due to a violation of Apple's review guidelines.
> 
> The game, from Every Day The Same Dream team MolleIndustria, consists of a series of four mini-games "that make the player symbolically complicit in coltan extraction in Congo, outsourced labor in China, e-waste in Pakistan and gadget consumerism in the West," according to the official web site...
> 
> ...



Here's the website for the app: http://phonestory.org/#ewaste


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## Crispy (Sep 14, 2011)

Using the apple logo without permission from apple was probably not the wisest thing to do.


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## editor (Sep 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Using the apple logo without permission from apple was probably not the wisest thing to do.


It would have been censored regardless (although this screen grab from the game shows a pear logo). Either way, anything that raises the environmental issues and the human cost of shiny devices that make fat corporates* $$$$s should be applauded. Good luck to them.






(*Not just Apple - all tech companies - although with Apple being the hippest, biggest and richest, they're a better target than most)


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## Crispy (Sep 14, 2011)

A screenshot I saw elsewhere used the apple logo.

Good luck to them too.


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> A screenshot I saw elsewhere used the apple logo.
> 
> Good luck to them too.



Yup. Don't know they don't release it on Android tbh, put some of that rabid anti Apple hate energy to good use...


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## editor (Sep 14, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yup. Don't know they don't release it on Android tbh, put some of that rabid anti Apple hate energy to good use...


Try reading the link before engaging your usual kneejerk reaction.

They are releasing it on Android and this is not about "rabid anti Apple hate energy" (whatever that is) - it's about workers rights and the environmental impact of _all _technology.


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 14, 2011)

Haha good advice for you on more than one occasion I think you'll find.


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## editor (Sep 14, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Haha good advice for you on more than one occasion I think you'll find.


Just read my posts properly next time and leave out the personal stuff. Thanks.


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 14, 2011)

editor said:


> Just read my posts properly next time and leave out the personal stuff. Thanks.



How about you read posts properly instead of introducing your usual snide ridden bias into proceedings? You're a huge source of negativity and you can't even admit that, pathetic.


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## Crispy (Sep 14, 2011)

If I could ban you both from apple threads, I would.


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## strung out (Sep 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> If I could ban you both from apple threads, I would.


like


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## 19sixtysix (Sep 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> If I could ban you both from apple threads, I would.



24 hours for both


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 14, 2011)

Crispy said:


> If I could ban you both from apple threads, I would.



Please, don't act like there's any equivalence, it's well known that it's the Editor that has the problem and causes threads to go negative when it comes to this stuff, all that's happening is more people aren't putting up with his shitty attitude in this area. If he didn't post the shite he did there'd be no issue.


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## magneze (Sep 14, 2011)

Shite. You're as bad as each other.


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## strung out (Sep 14, 2011)

kid eternity's gotten even worse imo


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## Crispy (Sep 14, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Please, don't act like there's any equivalence, it's well known that it's the Editor that has the problem and causes threads to go negative when it comes to this stuff, all that's happening is more people aren't putting up with his shitty attitude in this area. If he didn't post the shite he did there'd be no issue.



Bullshit. You're as bad if not worse. Always first to reply to him with a pitch-perfect dig that will get him going. And you know what ed's like when someone gets him going. It's pathetic and ruins the tech forums.


----------



## Winot (Sep 15, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Bullshit. You're as bad if not worse. Always first to reply to him with a pitch-perfect dig that will get him going. And you know what ed's like when someone gets him going. It's pathetic and ruins the tech forums.



Agreed. Would be good if you could force them to ignore each other.


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## sim667 (Sep 15, 2011)

It just makes me laugh that you all argue about this tech stuff like it actually matters.

Its a tech forum with attitude..... Maybe you should have made foxyred mod for this section.


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 15, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Bullshit. You're as bad if not worse. Always first to reply to him with a pitch-perfect dig that will get him going. And you know what ed's like when someone gets him going. It's pathetic and ruins the tech forums.



You're a fucking idiot if you actually believe that. The facts speak for themselves, so do the regular PMs I've seen from people who don't like his shite either. He starts shit all the time, I just refuse to humour him that he isn't trolling anymore.


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 15, 2011)

sim667 said:


> It just makes me laugh that you all argue about this tech stuff like it actually matters.
> 
> Its a tech forum with attitude..... Maybe you should have made foxyred mod for this section.



Heh yeah it's trivial bullshit at the end of the day, 30000 children died of starvation in east Africa in the last 8 and a half weeks...so yeah this doesn't rate highly on the human scale of civilisation..!


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## beesonthewhatnow (Sep 15, 2011)

strung out said:


> like


This


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## Kanda (Sep 15, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Heh yeah it's trivial bullshit at the end of the day, 30000 children died of starvation in east Africa in the last 8 and a half weeks...so yeah this doesn't rate highly on the human scale of civilisation..!



That's Steve Jobs fault for not being so charitable in Editors mind....


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 15, 2011)

Kanda said:


> That's Steve Jobs fault for not being so charitable in Editors mind....


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## strung out (Sep 15, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> You're a fucking idiot if you actually believe that. The facts speak for themselves, so do the regular PMs I've seen from people who don't like his shite either. He starts shit all the time, I just refuse to humour him that he isn't trolling anymore.


'numerous PMs of support'


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## skyscraper101 (Sep 15, 2011)

I quite enjoy the spats. Makes the thread more entertaining


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## FridgeMagnet (Sep 15, 2011)

Christ, I don't.


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## elbows (Sep 16, 2011)

A few bad apples, sending us to sleep, and it'l take more than a kiss from Android or WebOS to wake us from this nightmare.


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 16, 2011)

strung out said:


> 'numerous PMs of support'



Not one has said anything about 'support' all have shared the same negative experience at the hands of the editor's delusional behaviour.


----------



## magneze (Sep 16, 2011)




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## skyscraper101 (Sep 16, 2011)

I don't think its trolling at all. He's complimented Apple plenty of times where deserved, and offered criticism where he feels it's justified. I don't want to read a dullard thread full of apple fans praising everything. I want the organisation, and its products, critiqued to the max. The often polar opposite opinions of KE and Ed are actually useful to anybody who doesn't have an opinion to form one. The argy bargy just makes it all entertaining, because, as we all know none of this really matters in the grand scheme of things.


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 17, 2011)

I agree I want scrutiny of Apple but I also want scrutiny of all corporations not this infantile backing Google against Apple crap which the editor and his fandroid kin do...


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## Crispy (Sep 17, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I agree I want scrutiny of Apple but I also want scrutiny of all corporations not this infantile backing Google against Apple crap which the editor and his fandroid kin do...


Fandroid? Listen to yourself!


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 17, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Fandroid? Listen to yourself!



So it's ok to call Apple obsessives fanbois but yet Android ones can't have a negative name association?


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## Crispy (Sep 18, 2011)

Both words are childish.


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## editor (Sep 27, 2011)

Apple have been denied the trademark "multi-touch" on the entirely obvious grounds that the term was too broad.

Good.

http://mashable.com/2011/09/27/apple-denied-trademark-for-multi-touch-by-patent-office/


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 27, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Both words are childish.



Well quite but repeated attempts to move beyond this type of discourse haven't proved possible on here...it's now if you can't beat them join them in their stupid terminology!


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## elbows (Sep 27, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Well quite but repeated attempts to move beyond this type of discourse haven't proved possible on here...it's now if you can't beat them join them in their stupid terminology!



You could take the high ground if you really wanted to, and if you don't then you can and will be fairly criticised. Nobody is forcing you to join in with silly games, and you do yourself no favours by pretending otherwise. I mean really, if one of the problems with this sort of shit is that it lowers peoples opinions of you then I really don't see why you think its a good idea to join in. I lose my cool and join in occasionally but I always regret it later, and Im not going to blame anyone else for that.


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 27, 2011)

elbows said:


> You could take the high ground if you really wanted to, and if you don't then you can and will be fairly criticised. Nobody is forcing you to join in with silly games, and you do yourself no favours by pretending otherwise. I mean really, if one of the problems with this sort of shit is that it lowers peoples opinions of you then I really don't see why you think its a good idea to join in. I lose my cool and join in occasionally but I always regret it later, and Im not going to blame anyone else for that.



Hey I tied repeatedly to talk about these things rationally, I tried to express an insight into the reality of business that creates these perception etc but our resident Google troll wouldn't have it so figured why tolerate it anymore and just fight fire with fire...


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## teqniq (Sep 27, 2011)

http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...-new-iphone-at-oct-4-event-in-california.html


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## Kid_Eternity (Sep 28, 2011)

And rumored to be in the UK by October 14th...


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## fractionMan (Sep 28, 2011)

strung out said:


> like



there's a button for that.

HTH


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## fractionMan (Sep 28, 2011)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> This



Unfortunately there's not a button for that


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## editor (Oct 4, 2011)

Now this is good news. Could this be Cook leading the change?


> *Apple wakes up to Chinese pollution concerns*
> A Chinese-led campaign to clean up Apple's supply chain is finally gaining traction
> 
> In the face of sustained pressure from Chinese green groups, Apple has finally broken its silence on pollution problems in its supply chain, for the first time holding talks with the environmental organisations that, for many months, have been asking the firm to increase transparency – and improve oversight – of its China operations. Ma Jun, director of the Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) and the man fronting the campaign, has already had preliminary discussions with Apple chiefs in California, while representatives of the wider NGO coalition may soon visit the United States for formal talks.
> ...


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## Kid_Eternity (Oct 15, 2011)

And now the iPad 3 rumours start...apparently it's coming out...wait for it...EARLY IN THE NEW YEAR!!!


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## editor (Oct 17, 2011)

The sweet sound of cash in. 

Here's a far more tasteful tribute:


> _Berners-Lee says Jobs made computing 'usable rather than infuriating_
> "Steve was a champion of usable technology - even sexy technology," concludes Berners-Lee, who still uses Apple computers now. "Intuitive on the outside and extensible and cool engineering on the inside. The geeks among us need to be at the same time deeply insistent technically on beautiful, clean, extensible design inside, and utterly impatient as naive end users about the outside."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/oct/16/tim-berners-lee-steve-jobs


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## strung out (Oct 28, 2011)

at some point in the next couple of months (maybe even next month) i'm going to have enough for a new imac. i know the most recent one was released in may, so i'm wondering if there's any news or rumours on when the next one might come out. i don't *need* a new one immediately, but my macbook is over 5 years old now and i want to replace it before it packs up.

this site (http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/) gives the advice "buy only if you need it - approaching the end of a cycle". how accurate do you think this is going to be? i don't want to delay too long, but i also don't fancy buying a desktop that gets updated within a couple of months.

on another topic, is there anywhere that will recondition/refurbish a macbook for you? mine is ancientish now, but if i could give it a good service, will i be able to extend it's life a bit more? ideally, i'd like to have both a desktop and a laptop in serviceable condition for when i do my masters next year.


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## Kid_Eternity (Oct 28, 2011)

Macrumours are a pretty decent site, I'd be happy to go with their suggestions.


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## FridgeMagnet (Oct 28, 2011)

Macrumors is generally a fairly reliable site for the product lifecycle thing - there certainly hasn't been a new iMac for a fair while now. But on the other hand, I generally say "buy what you want when you want it" (and I do this myself too).

The easiest way to make a macbook run better is to get more RAM for it (e.g. from Crucial). That's pretty cheap. Beyond that there isn't a lot that's practical, unless there's a specific issue that you're having trouble with which could be repaired. Swapping the HD out for a newer, faster one - an SSD if you can stretch to that - might also help general performance.


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## strung out (Oct 28, 2011)

cool. i'll probably hold off til early next year for the imac then.

i think i've upgraded my macbook to take as much ram as it'll take (it's a 2006 vintage and i've already upgraded from 1gb to 2gb, many years ago). the main problem is its ridiculously noisy fan, overheating and the occasional complete laptop failure with panic reports etc when i've got a few things running.


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## Kid_Eternity (Oct 29, 2011)

Yep the new ones should be coming in early spring...


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## editor (Nov 1, 2011)

Here's the super-sleek way Apple stores are going to operate soon:


> If a customer orders an in-stock product, pick up will be available approximately 12 minutes after completing the order. Why 12 minutes? Well, the order goes through the system to the designated Apple Store in about 3 minutes. Apple’s back-of-house employees have 2 minutes to set all of the products aside on a shelf from the minute it was ordered. There is then a 7-minute grace period for employees to get everything else in order.
> 
> Around 12 minutes after purchasing, customers will be able to walk into the Apple Store, skip lines, skip registers, get their products, sign for them and leave.


http://www.bgr.com/2011/11/01/new-a...-how-it-will-change-apples-retail-operations/


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## ska invita (Nov 1, 2011)

editor said:


> Apple’s back-of-house employees have 2 minutes to set all of the products aside on a shelf from the minute it was ordered.


sounds like a great place to work


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## maldwyn (Nov 1, 2011)

Bet Argos could learn a thing or two, takes ages there even if you've reserved an item.


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## skyscraper101 (Nov 1, 2011)

Argos are usually faster than 12 minutes in my experience and they have shit tons more lines of stock to dispense.


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## tarannau (Nov 1, 2011)

strung out said:


> cool. i'll probably hold off til early next year for the imac then.
> 
> i think i've upgraded my macbook to take as much ram as it'll take (it's a 2006 vintage and i've already upgraded from 1gb to 2gb, many years ago). the main problem is its ridiculously noisy fan, overheating and the occasional complete laptop failure with panic reports etc when i've got a few things running.



It's actually not that difficult to repair many macs fairly easily yourself if you're vaguely handy, but you're probably far better advised to find a techy friend or trusted local repair shop. Can't speak for your particular model, but most of the mac laptops of that era are reasonably easy to service - the repair guides on powerbookmedic.com (and others) have proved simple enough for even a cackhander like me to replace the hd in my ageing MBP all of once. A possible fan replacement and a general clean down of all that dusty stuff should be meat and drink to a decent repair place with that in mind. Seems more than a fair chance that it'll help sort out those overheating issues and make that laptop a bit more bearable for a year or few.


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## strung out (Nov 1, 2011)

sounds good, i think there's a repair place near my work come to think of it.

once i buy an imac in the new year i'd probably only be using the laptop for library trips, so as long as it lasts another 18 months, i'll be happy.


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 1, 2011)

skyscraper101 said:


> Argos are usually faster than 12 minutes in my experience and they have shit tons more lines of stock to dispense.



Yep I've found that too, Argos are crazy fast!


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## chomper (Nov 1, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> fandroid
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Kanda (Nov 1, 2011)

ska invita said:


> sounds like a great place to work



I've ridiculed Apple store staff (I queued for 2 of the original iPads) in the past, took the piss out of the cheering and all that bollocks, the 3 or 4 I spoke to in the Regent Street store seem to love the place, nutters!!


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## ska invita (Nov 1, 2011)

Kanda said:


> I've ridiculed Apple store staff (I queued for 2 of the original iPads) in the past, took the piss out of the cheering and all that bollocks, the 3 or 4 I spoke to in the Regent Street store seem to love the place, nutters!!


cos theyre always nicking stuff


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 2, 2011)

Kanda said:


> I've ridiculed Apple store staff (I queued for 2 of the original iPads) in the past, took the piss out of the cheering and all that bollocks, the 3 or 4 I spoke to in the Regent Street store seem to love the place, nutters!!



Innit! I've got a couple mates that work for them and they're constantly singing their praises!


----------



## editor (Nov 2, 2011)

Here's an interesting story from Cult Of Mac (and on several other Apple related websites).


> *Like Mighty Mouse Beating Up Superman, Small Spanish Tablet Maker Wins iPad Lawsuit*
> 
> Despite a number of recent courtroom victories which have seen Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned in both Australia and Europe, one small Spanish firm has proven Apple doesn’t always get its own way in front of a judge.
> 
> ...


----------



## maldwyn (Nov 3, 2011)

Argos offer:
2 x £25 iTunes vouchers for £40, ends 8/11/11


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 3, 2011)

That's not bad a deal.


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## sim667 (Nov 3, 2011)

There is speculation on the macrumors site they will be discontinuing the mac pro range. I will cry tears of blood if they do, i love my mac pro.


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## Crispy (Nov 3, 2011)

It represents a tiny fraction of their sales now - where it was once their core business!
The 'prosumerisation' of Final Cut, the discontinuation of Xserve, the lack of updates for the Mac Pro (still no thunderbolt) are strong indicators that they intend to abandon the professional market. If they don't intend that, then they'd better get some updated Mac Pros out there before the users abandon them instead.


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## sim667 (Nov 3, 2011)

If they discontinue the mac pro though, people will start doing more self builds, which isnt going to do their walled garden any favours.


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## elbows (Nov 3, 2011)

sim667 said:


> If they discontinue the mac pro though, people will start doing more self builds, which isnt going to do their walled garden any favours.



I don't think they'll care about that so long as they still sell boatloads of laptops etc.


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## Crispy (Nov 3, 2011)

sim667 said:


> If they discontinue the mac pro though, people will start doing more self builds, which isnt going to do their walled garden any favours.


Fuck all multiplied by two is still fuck all. Why would they care about enthusiasts building their own macs, when they can sell 10s of millions of ipads every year?


----------



## Structaural (Nov 3, 2011)

sim667 said:


> There is speculation on the macrumors site they will be discontinuing the mac pro range. I will cry tears of blood if they do, i love my mac pro.


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2011)

The thing I like about my 2008 Mac Pro is that subsequent versions didn't seem so much faster as to make me want to upgrade.

The thing I really hate about it is the limited choice of graphics cards. So if I ever have enough money to buy a powerful workstation again, I'll be building my own.


----------



## sim667 (Nov 3, 2011)

You can just stick your own graphics card in cant you?

TBH the hardware is so easy to upgrade im thinking about buying hard drives and just throwing them at it from the otherside of the room to see if i can slot them in. A bit like a really techy geeky game of darts.


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2011)

No, if you want to use the graphics card in OS X then you have to get a modified card BIOS that supports EFI, and I can't be doing with that sort of thing anymore in case it goes wrong, not at the price the sort of 3D graphics I want cost. Plus some of the high performance 3D beasts have power requirements that I don't want to risk in case I damage the Mac Pro's PSU, although Im sure if I did careful research I could avoid this.

I do like the case, but I'm pretty sure this is the only Mac Pro I'll ever own.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 3, 2011)

sim667 said:


> There is speculation on the macrumors site they will be discontinuing the mac pro range. I will cry tears of blood if they do, i love my mac pro.



Wouldn't surprise me really...Apple are going where the money is and it's  iPad, iPhone and maybe MacBook Air...


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## ska invita (Nov 3, 2011)

They discontinue and mess around with everything so you have to upgrade before time IME


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## Bungle73 (Nov 3, 2011)

maldwyn said:


> Argos offer:
> 2 x £25 iTunes vouchers for £40, ends 8/11/11


9th.


----------



## Structaural (Nov 4, 2011)

I think the Mac Pro will be around for a long while yet. This was the rumour equivalent of bloke down the pub told me.

They might not make the billions with them as they make with the iOS stuff, but it's still a big market, it's just a slow one. There's 22 Mac Pros in this small company and they were all bought within the last two years. When I was at TBWA they had over 250 of them.

The thing is smartphones being small and underpowered can still make leaps and bounds regarding efficiency and processor speeds. The desktops make much smaller leaps as they are so powerful anyway. I mean clock speed hasn't changed much over the last 4 years, just FPUs, caches and hyperthreading have got better and better and cores have gone up. I mean the 12-core mac pro they're selling now is ridiculously fast, my 2007 8-core gets around 10,000 geekbench, the 12-core gets 25,000. In fact for the things I do with it (3D rendering and After Effects rendering) it would be even faster as all cores are efficiently used. The problem with the mac pros is you don't upgrade for about 3-5 years, I'll keep this fucker till it gives up, I put a 5770 GPU in it this year, flashed, easy peasy.

An iMac is a glorified laptop, I can't believe they'd take away the only professional machine they sell, which also uses the same case as the current server. That would effectively give up a huge market to windows, as loads of people can't work on an iMac, I need an Eizo screen for a start.


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## elbows (Nov 4, 2011)

But none of those things even come close to ensuring that Apple will choose to remain in that game. Apple's direction has clearly evolved over the last 5 years, and it really would not surprise me if they abandoned the pro end. Maybe they won't, but I'd certainly not be complacent about it.


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## Structaural (Nov 4, 2011)

If they do, they do. Plenty of other options. At least Windows is bearable these days. But I'd be gutted, I just don't like all-in-one-computers. It'd be Hackintosh until unfeasible.


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 4, 2011)

Windows is more than bearable, W7 is on par with OSX. It's a great OS that has some very decent and competitively priced laptops using it.


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## elbows (Nov 4, 2011)

Yeah, I was more than a little relieved that Microsoft managed to get a clue just in time. Windows still manages to wind me up more often than OS X though, when it decides to get stuck doing updates, suddenly fail to boot one day, or decide to remove 'unused' or 'unavailable' network shared folder icons from the desktop.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 4, 2011)

OSX does ime tend to handle updates a lot better but Windows owns when it comes to managing photos, Apple try to get you to use iPhoto which is cumbersome to say the least!


----------



## strung out (Nov 6, 2011)

the latest rumour for the imac is that there's going to be a redesign to coincide with the new ivy bridge processor. that could mean the update not coming til 2nd half of 2012.

that makes my decision even harder...


----------



## editor (Nov 6, 2011)

I wouldn't base any buying decision on an Apple 'rumour' because they're almost always made up/wild guesses (see: iPhone 5).


----------



## strung out (Nov 6, 2011)

yes, but it's reasonable to speculate on the new imac being released to coincide with pentium's new processor, which is confirmed for spring of next year.

theoretically, i won't be needing anything new until august, but the longer the money burns a hole in my pocket, the less likely i am to still have it around that time!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 6, 2011)

strung out said:


> the latest rumour for the imac is that there's going to be a redesign to coincide with the new ivy bridge processor. that could mean the update not coming til 2nd half of 2012.
> 
> that makes my decision even harder...



There's a few rumors doing the rounds that the entire Mac pro/iMac/MacBook Pro line is getting a design update in the next six months. Wouldn't surprise me if they dump the Mac pro tbh.


----------



## maldwyn (Nov 6, 2011)

It'd be good to see one last MacPro tweak - thunderbolt.


----------



## strung out (Nov 6, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> There's a few rumors doing the rounds that the entire Mac pro/iMac/MacBook Pro line is getting a design update in the next six months. Wouldn't surprise me if they dump the Mac pro tbh.


as long as the new imacs come before august, i'll be relatively happy. i'm just wary of buying new, only for an update to happen a few months later, especially with the processor update coming soon and possible usb 3.0


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 6, 2011)

strung out said:


> as long as the new imacs come before august, i'll be relatively happy. i'm just wary of buying new, only for an update to happen a few months later, especially with the processor update coming soon and possible usb 3.0



They will without doubt, Apple's upgrade cycle is fairly obvious now so you can practically plan your purchases based on some reasonable assumptions.


----------



## strung out (Nov 6, 2011)

yeah, i'm just concerned that with the timing of intel's new processor, there could be a slight delay into the second half of the year. fingers crossed


----------



## sim667 (Nov 7, 2011)

I use windows 7 at work and its loathsome.

Constantly crashes, always asking for drivers.....

bleugh, i even set up my work email address on my iphone so i didnt have to use my work pc as much


----------



## fractionMan (Nov 7, 2011)

sim667 said:


> I use windows 7 at work and its loathsome.
> 
> Constantly crashes, always asking for drivers.....
> 
> bleugh, i even set up my work email address on my iphone so i didnt have to use my work pc as much



I use it at home and it never crashes or asks for new drivers


----------



## sim667 (Nov 7, 2011)

It's probably how it's set up here then.

I'm still kicking myself for upgrading snow leopard to lion. Lion has some nice features but isn't quite as stable.

The consultant at work reckons lion will come into its own on 10.7.4

I'm currently debating whether to unjailbreak my apple tv's and put iOS 5 on them, then just using AirPlay for my plex movies instead of the jailbreak plex app. They need to open an app store on apple tv


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 7, 2011)

Windows 7 is a very solid a OS had little or no problems with it myself unlike the tragedy that is Vista...! Lion is easily as good ime too.


----------



## Winot (Nov 7, 2011)

Have had irritating problems with Lion 'hiding' apps (such as Mail and Chrome) between desktops.  If it isn't fixed in the next point release I may reinstall Snow Leopard.


----------



## editor (Nov 8, 2011)

Tragically, this appears to be true:
Steve Jobs-themed cake shop to open in London
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/steve-jobs-themed-cake-shop-to-open-in-london-50005965/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 8, 2011)

Is that the one where the proceeds are going to a cancer charity or another one?


----------



## sim667 (Nov 8, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> OSX does ime tend to handle updates a lot better but Windows owns when it comes to managing photos,* Apple try to get you to use iPhoto which is cumbersome to say the least!*



You've clearly never taught an introduction to digital photography class on windoze. The woman who turned up with a mac laptop didnt have any problems downloading,organising, editing on iphoto. The ones that turned up with all the shitty software on PC they insist on giving you with digital cameras..... were just painfully slow! Mentally badly designed. Photoshop elements on the college PC's was on the verge of unusable too.

I actually rate iPhoto, although I do wish you had the option on not using events.


----------



## editor (Nov 8, 2011)

This may be handy for you Mac people - it's a 4 page guide on how to "How to clean up and declutter your Mac":
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/how-to-clean-up-and-declutter-your-mac-1035635


----------



## editor (Nov 8, 2011)

Nice work if you can get it:
*Apple awards senior execs $60m each*
http://www.macworld.co.uk/apple-business/news/index.cfm?newsid=3316649

Shame they couldn't pay their workers a bit more.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 8, 2011)

sim667 said:


> You've clearly never taught an introduction to digital photography class on windoze. The woman who turned up with a mac laptop didnt have any problems downloading,organising, editing on iphoto. The ones that turned up with all the shitty software on PC they insist on giving you with digital cameras..... were just painfully slow! Mentally badly designed. Photoshop elements on the college PC's was on the verge of unusable too.
> 
> I actually rate iPhoto, although I do wish you had the option on not using events.



Really? That's odd, with Windows you just plug in the card or cable and copy and paste into a folder of choice. Try finding where your photos are stored if you use iPhoto!


----------



## Crispy (Nov 8, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Really? That's odd, with Windows you just plug in the card or cable and copy and paste into a folder of choice. Try finding where your photos are stored if you use iPhoto!


They're in iphoto. The whole point is that you don't need to worry about folders and files. Just like itunes.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> They're in iphoto. The whole point is that you don't need to worry about folders and files. Just like itunes.



Yeah but with iTunes it's pretty obvious where the music is. I just opened up finder, went into Pictures and there's no folder with photos, just an icon which says iPhoto. Not exactly as useful as it could be.


----------



## editor (Nov 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> They're in iphoto. The whole point is that you don't need to worry about folders and files. Just like itunes.


I like to "worry" about my photo folders. I like to see exactly where they are and for them to be in places where I put them.


----------



## Crispy (Nov 8, 2011)

editor said:


> I like to "worry" about my photo folders. I like to see exactly where they are and for them to be in places where I put them.


Understood, but you don't actually _need_ to. Personally, I like having this sort of thing abstracted for me. Files and Folders are a way of organising information on a disk, but they're rarely the best way of browsing or searching that information.

I bet you have no idea what folders everything on your phone lives in, for example. The software takes care of the nitty-gritty and presents the data to you in a way that's appropriate for that media.

You just have to make sure that the software can perform the tasks that you'd otherwise use explorer/finder for. Photos in iphoto can be selected and dragged out of the iphoto window at which point they behave just like files. Simple


----------



## maldwyn (Nov 8, 2011)

Cook a possible $399 million at today's prices if he stays until 2021 - I haven't seen any mention on Ive's remuneration.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> Understood, but you don't actually _need_ to. Personally, I like having this sort of thing abstracted for me. Files and Folders are a way of organising information on a disk, but they're rarely the best way of browsing or searching that information.
> 
> I bet you have no idea what folders everything on your phone lives in, for example. The software takes care of the nitty-gritty and presents the data to you in a way that's appropriate for that media.
> 
> You just have to make sure that the software can perform the tasks that you'd otherwise use explorer/finder for. Photos in iphoto can be selected and dragged out of the iphoto window at which point they behave just like files. Simple



It'd be better if Apple simply had a photos folder instead of iPhoto icon so you can have the best of both worlds rather than being forced to go through iPhoto and do it Apple's way.


----------



## editor (Nov 8, 2011)

Crispy said:


> You just have to make sure that the software can perform the tasks that you'd otherwise use explorer/finder for. Photos in iphoto can be selected and dragged out of the iphoto window at which point they behave just like files. Simple


Trouble is, when you entrust all your photos to one system, big fuck ups can follow:



> So with all these new features, why am I not jumping up and down with excitement? One big reason: iPhoto '11 is the buggiest piece of software Apple's delivered in my memory.
> 
> Apple's support boards are overflowing with unhappy upgraders. Many claim they have lost all of their photos, which could be true in some cases. It's also possible something went wrong with the library upgrade, and the photos are there but the database has become corrupted. Reportedly Apple is working on a fix, and if true, it needs to be a fast one. Make sure you have a good backup before you install.
> 
> ...


----------



## Crispy (Nov 8, 2011)

Indeed. I'm not claiming that iphoto is perfect, but I do think its design philosophy should be an aim for personal computers. It's like we got a certain amount of abstraction from the raw data 30 years ago and decided "yep, that's enough. every joe blogs should have to manually sort through thousands of files in folders to organise, browse and describe their data"

Phones are actually much further on, in terms of user interface and experience. PCs are still burdened with a 30 year old legacy of How We Do Things.


----------



## editor (Nov 8, 2011)

But that can often prove to be a bigger problem: entrust your data to the way that the phone/computer wants to do it and all can be jus' dandy until something goes wrong, or your needs change and you want to do it another way.


----------



## Structaural (Nov 8, 2011)

The iPhoto icon in Pictures is technically a folder, just right click and open package, there's your photos. Also right click in iPhoto and Show in Finder if you want to see the enclosing folder of a pic.

I use iPhoto at home but tend to use Bridge at work.
Isn't there a Mac version of Picasso available now?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 8, 2011)

Structaural said:


> The iPhoto icon in Pictures is technically a folder, just right click and open package, there's your photos. Also right click in iPhoto and Show in Finder if you want to see the enclosing folder of a pic.
> 
> I use iPhoto at home but tend to use Bridge at work.
> Isn't there a Mac version of Picasso available now?



And then dig around to find your photos which are spread across some not obviously names folders. Like I said a photos folder in Pictures would make sense. The best of both worlds, the ease of iPhoto but not being screwed if iPhoto gets bug ridden and unusable. Not having all your digital eggs in the same iBasket has it's merits...


----------



## Crispy (Nov 8, 2011)

editor said:


> But that can often prove to be a bigger problem: entrust your data to the way that the phone/computer wants to do it and all can be jus' dandy until something goes wrong, or your needs change and you want to do it another way.


You're already trusting your computer to manage the inner working of files and folders. If you take a look at the NTFS specification, for example, you'll find a quite scary amount of complexity involved in "create a file call file.jpg that is 246kb, lives in the folder My Pictures, that was modified yesterday, that was taken with a Canon camera, that has the dimensions 1600x1200 pixels at 72dpi" etc. etc. We find it useful that NTFS means we don't have to shuffle the raw data around on the disk, making sure the index table is kept up to date, and that we don't write over chunks of any other files.

iPhoto has a nice interface, but it's not particularly reliable, which is a shame. But while you're using it, it presents your photos in groups called Events, which you can browse through and select photos. You can create arbitrary albums using photos from many Events. It abstracts the raw data into a form you can use, just like Explorer does, but in a way that's suited to photos.

The argument against special-purpose data organisers is the same that was used against the GUI when it was first invented. "The command line works perfectly well. In fact it gives me _more_ control over my data. Adding another layer of software on top is just going to complicate things. What happens if the GUI crashes and messes up my data?" - Just because iphoto does it in a rather shoddy way does not mean it's not an approach worth making.


----------



## editor (Nov 8, 2011)

I can easily copy/back up selected photo files and folders easily wherever I want across multiple drives and boxes and I've never suffered any of the worrying problems reported by iPhoto users - and I'm still free to view/edit the files using other programs like ACDSee and Picasa or whatever else I fancy.

I could almost put up with being forced to do it the system's way if it was reliable - but by all accounts iPhoto isn't, so it really is of no use.

Edit to add: I'm sure iPhoto is great for a lot of users and absolutely perfect for their needs, but I'm just arguing from my perspective here as a photographer.


----------



## sim667 (Nov 8, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Really? That's odd, with Windows you just plug in the card or cable and copy and paste into a folder of choice. Try finding where your photos are stored if you use iPhoto!



Baring in mind that most of the students I had on that course didnt know what a folder was, didnt know there was a second mouse click button, and somehow continuously managed to scatter their files through their computer systems when they were at home....... It was more like basic computer use than basic photography. Maybe iphoto isnt that great if your computer savvy, but if you dont have a clue about the basics, iPhoto is an excellent application.

The woman who turned up with an old macbook she'd acquired flew off, and got it straight away, i pretty much left her to it after showing her the basics.... Picasa was good on pc so if thats availabe on mac i guess it could be a pretty good alternative.
One thing I would nitpick with iphoto is that you cant merge events into one....... but as someone said earlier in the thread, both iphoto and aperture library files are basically folders but the contrain the structure of what you have set up in aperture/iphoto in them too....... If you really want to access the original files, you can option click and go to 'show package contents' or you can just export them out of the app.

In other news I've just applied for a job with apple.

*runs from the Haterz.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Nov 8, 2011)

sim667 said:


> One thing I would nitpick with iphoto is that you cant merge events into one.......


Select the two events, right-click 'em and "Merge Events"


----------



## sim667 (Nov 8, 2011)

Lazy Llama said:


> Select the two events, right-click 'em and "Merge Events"





Thanks....... I only got iLife 11 the other day so im still finding the tricks on it......

Apple are seriosuly looking into whether the lion upgrade actually did bork my optical drive. I had to video what it does and email it to them...... We know its software cus it still works fine on snow leopard..... Im hoping to get me drive replaced


----------



## Kanda (Nov 8, 2011)

editor said:


> I can easily copy/back up selected photo files and folders easily wherever I want across multiple drives and boxes and I've never suffered any of the worrying problems reported by iPhoto users - and I'm still free to view/edit the files using other programs like ACDSee and Picasa or whatever else I fancy.



Hmm.. pretty sure I can too on my Mac. I've never suffered iPhoto problems either, I don't using it extensively though. Picassa works well, not used ACDSee.


----------



## sim667 (Nov 8, 2011)

The only time ive lost photos is some I'd forgotten to backup on my iphone when i upgraded to iOS 5 when it failed.

I got the photos back from the iphone backup, lost the vids though..... It was entirely my own fault.

I lost a couple using aperture too, but it was cracked and i did something stoopid.


----------



## editor (Nov 8, 2011)

Kanda said:


> Hmm.. pretty sure I can too on my Mac. I've never suffered iPhoto problems either, I don't using it extensively though. Picassa works well, not used ACDSee.


ACDSee isn't perfect but I like the way you can browse photos on your drive without having to import them first (like many of the high end photo management tools make you do).

I'm yet to find the perfect photo management program. Picasa comes close though - it's better than Photoshop for quick edits.


----------



## Structaural (Nov 9, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> And then dig around to find your photos which are spread across some not obviously names folders. Like I said a photos folder in Pictures would make sense. The best of both worlds, the ease of iPhoto but not being screwed if iPhoto gets bug ridden and unusable. Not having all your digital eggs in the same iBasket has it's merits...



Really? Just go into Originals and everything is originally named as it was on the camera and is in a folder named by the date you imported. Seems simple to me. Any edits end up in Modified.

Also iPhoto is a bit like iTunes - you can ask it NOT to copy files to the database folder, then you can leave everything organised exactly how you like. If you want to use iPhoto that is. It's shit for RAW (I think).
I like the fact that everything I plug-in has been imported into iPhoto, I can manage stuff after that, but every picture and film I ever took is in iPhoto (and then backed up), and like Crispy says, I don't need to worry about its organisation. iMovie is the same for all my movies but thankfully doesn't duplicate everything.

Most photographers I know use Lightroom, not sure what its limitations are. I use Capture One for processing RAW at work...

(what is with fonts on these new boards?, mysterious use of serifs every now and again)


----------



## editor (Nov 21, 2011)

The UK's Chief Rabbi has launched a rather bonkers attack partly blaming Steve Jobs for creating, "a selfish consumer culture that has only brought unhappiness."

Mind you, he has a decent enough general point here:


> He said advertising only made shoppers aware of what they did not have - rather than feeling grateful for what they did - and  warned a culture where people only worried about themselves could not last long.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-helping-create-selfish-consumer-society.html


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 21, 2011)

> 'The consumer society was laid down by the late Steve Jobs coming down the mountain with two tablets, iPad one and iPad two, and the result is that we now have a culture of iPod, iPhone, iTune, i, i, i.
> 
> 'When you're an individualist, egocentric culture and you only care about 'i’, you don’t do terribly well.'


Oh dear. And I bet he was up all night working out the "i" thing, too.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 21, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Oh dear. And I bet he was up all night working out the "i" thing, too.



Yup. Seems like the standard 'Dont give in to that mass compulsion give in to our one!' bleating you get from religious figures about consumerism...


----------



## Structaural (Nov 21, 2011)

The fact that he has his own app in the AppStore negates his point somewhat...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 21, 2011)

Heh


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 25, 2011)

So the iPad 3 rumors are going into overdrive...retina screen should be nice though!


----------



## editor (Nov 26, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> So the iPad 3 rumors are going into overdrive...retina screen should be nice though!


Rumours generally = made up stories to drive traffic to deceitful blogs.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 26, 2011)

Well everyone likes traffic otherwise they'd never write a thing. Tbh I doubt many people take it that seriously, it's just a bit of fun at the end of the day and we all know there's likely to be some truth to some of them as there always is..!


----------



## maldwyn (Nov 26, 2011)

But there is an issue with time wasting 'echoes'.

It would be helpful to have a list of reliable rumour journalist rather than these portals of deceit.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 26, 2011)

maldwyn said:


> But there is an issue with time wasting 'echoes'.
> 
> It would be helpful to have a list of reliable rumour journalist rather than these portals of deceit.



Complaining about echoes in online or any media for that matter is like complaining about the sea being wet!


----------



## sim667 (Nov 28, 2011)

Can we start our own apple rumour?

iPad 3 will dispense toilet roll?


----------



## Structaural (Dec 7, 2011)

Just came across these: Podcasts by the Ars Techina Mac guy, John Siracusa : http://5by5.tv/hypercritical

I haven't listened to any, just putting it out there.


----------



## Crispy (Dec 7, 2011)

Oooh, that guy real knows his stuff  Cheers


----------



## editor (Dec 9, 2011)

Given the acoustics of the place, I suspect there's _almighty_ levels of whooping, high fiving and general Apple product worshipping going on at the opening of the Apple Grand Central store right now.







Hey, those crazy, wildly clapping Apple staff are wearing red t-shirts this time.  Wild!

http://www.bgr.com/2011/12/09/live-...of-apples-grand-central-terminal-apple-store/


----------



## sim667 (Dec 9, 2011)

I bet they can all take photos of it too


----------



## Crispy (Dec 9, 2011)

ATTENTION: There is NOTHING in this shop that you have not seen before.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 9, 2011)

sim667 said:


> Can we start our own apple rumour?
> 
> iPad 3 will dispense toilet roll?



I heard you can control military satellites with it.


----------



## editor (Dec 9, 2011)

Crispy said:


> ATTENTION: There is NOTHING in this shop that you have not seen before.


But the whooping staff clones are wearing RED shirts instead of blue! OMG!
#gettherequick
#amazing
#socool


----------



## editor (Dec 9, 2011)

It's a truly emotional journey though, seeing a super rich company opening another store.


> Hector Nieves, an IT consultant who works near Grand Central, said he came by to check out products to buy for Christmas, but also wasn't looking to make a purchase. Still, he said he was moved when he entered the store amid the cheering crowd, when his thoughts went to the contributions that late founder Steve Jobs brought to the technology world.
> 
> "I could barely hold back my emotions coming up the stairs," Nieves said.
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-5...ral-store-its-the-experience-not-the-product/



I can barely hold back the tears myself, to be honest.


----------



## bmd (Dec 9, 2011)

They're expecting $100 million turnover per year at that store. That is scary.


----------



## editor (Dec 9, 2011)

Bob Marley's Dad said:


> They're expecting $100 million turnover per year at that store. That is scary.


That's worth a high five or two! Hooray for big corporates!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 9, 2011)

Crispy said:


> ATTENTION: There is NOTHING in this shop that you have not seen before.



There is, there is all new iLove.


----------



## maldwyn (Dec 9, 2011)

They missed a Busby Berkeley opportunity on that staircase.


----------



## sim667 (Dec 9, 2011)

They make scary amounts of turnover.......


----------



## spitfire (Dec 9, 2011)

editor said:


> But the whooping staff clones are wearing RED shirts instead of blue! OMG!



All Apple Stores swapped over to red t-shirts for Christmas.

OMG......


----------



## Sunray (Dec 9, 2011)

I can't even watch them for a bit these days.  Its nearly physically painful.


----------



## strung out (Dec 9, 2011)

has anyone used/got opinions on magic mouse vs trackpad?

i'm getting an imac in the new year and figuring out which options to go for. i've been a laptop user for the last 6 years mainly so am used to trackpads, but there's something strange about using a trackpad on a desktop. i've had a go on both in the store, but still can't decide. any obvious thing i'm missing? i still don't really understand what's so magic about the magic mouse


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Dec 9, 2011)

strung out said:


> has anyone used/got opinions on magic mouse vs trackpad?
> 
> i'm getting an imac in the new year and figuring out which options to go for. i've been a laptop user for the last 6 years mainly so am used to trackpads, but there's something strange about using a trackpad on a desktop. i've had a go on both in the store, but still can't decide. any obvious thing i'm missing? i still don't really understand what's so magic about the magic mouse



I think it's the the fact you can do gestures on it, but not had a chance to play with one myself. It seems like a nice idea mind.


----------



## strung out (Dec 9, 2011)

yeah, the gestures seems to be the selling point with both the mouse and the trackpad. i'm leaning towards the trackpad, then buying my own mouse as the magic mouse doesn't look particularly ergonomic.


----------



## editor (Dec 9, 2011)

Sunray said:


> I can't even watch them for a bit these days. Its nearly physically painful.


They seem to be getting worse too. More hysterical. More devotional. More weird.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Dec 9, 2011)

strung out said:


> yeah, the gestures seems to be the selling point with both the mouse and the trackpad. i'm leaning towards the trackpad, then buying my own mouse as the magic mouse doesn't look particularly ergonomic.



That sounds like a good combo if you've got the need for it. 

Agree with ergonomics thing, probably not a popular thing to say, but I'm a fan of MS in the mouse department.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Dec 9, 2011)

editor said:


> They seem to be getting worse too. More hysterical. More devotional. More weird.



ikoolaid


----------



## editor (Dec 9, 2011)

Here's something they won't be whooping about:
*Apple using patents to undermine open standards again*
http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2011/12/09/apple-w3c


----------



## Winot (Dec 10, 2011)

strung out said:


> yeah, the gestures seems to be the selling point with both the mouse and the trackpad. i'm leaning towards the trackpad, then buying my own mouse as the magic mouse doesn't look particularly ergonomic.



Have used both and much prefer the trackpad.  Mouse top surface too small for gestures etc.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 10, 2011)

Winot said:


> Have used both and much prefer the trackpad.  Mouse top surface too small for gestures etc.



Have to say the mouse for the most part does feel very antiquated compared to the trackpad ime...


----------



## maldwyn (Dec 10, 2011)

I prefer a trackpad 98% of the time, a mouse when I need absolute precision.


----------



## magneze (Dec 10, 2011)

editor said:


> Here's something they won't be whooping about:
> *Apple using patents to undermine open standards again*
> http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2011/12/09/apple-w3c


It gets worse:


> ... now, for some reason, it has given valuable patents to a patent troll — which is using them to sue many of the top technology companies in the world.


http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/09/apple-made-a-deal-with-the-devil-no-worse-a-patent-troll/


----------



## editor (Dec 10, 2011)

magneze said:


> It gets worse:
> 
> http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/09/apple-made-a-deal-with-the-devil-no-worse-a-patent-troll/


If that scenario is true, Apple should hang their heads in shame.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 10, 2011)

maldwyn said:


> I prefer a trackpad 98% of the time, a mouse when I need absolute precision.



Yep, I just find it speeds up what I'm doing too, being able to nav quickly is very useful.


----------



## sim667 (Dec 11, 2011)

I've used both, prefer the magic mouseas it doesn't make my RSI ache quite as painful.

I think you can get wireless keyboards with the trackpads built in. I know my mate bought a new mac and I think he got one of those and a magic mouse


----------



## strung out (Dec 11, 2011)

I couldn't wait, so went out and bought a 27 inch imac this afternoon 

I got the wireless trackpad and keyboard fwiw


----------



## sim667 (Dec 11, 2011)

I got my magic mouse of eBay for half the price of apple tbf...... Yu can get decent peripherals on eBay cheap


----------



## strung out (Dec 11, 2011)

Yeah, I'll try and pick up a mouse of some kind soon. Maybe something that feels nicer than apple's mouses though.


----------



## tarannau (Dec 11, 2011)

I think the new Magic Mouse is alright to use fwiw, far better than that cloggy nippled number. But if you have the trackpad already there's probably a limit to how much of that finger swiping goodness you need.

Good work on the imac though - have fun! Since my splurge on LQ's laptop my effort at rebuilding the mac fund has been a little meagre. Hopefully this old beast will hang on a little longer until I can blow the lot on a brand new MBP/MBA a few months into next year.


----------



## Structaural (Dec 12, 2011)

Yeah get a 3rd party mouse that at least lets you press both left and right buttons at the same time. Especially if you play a few games.
I use the magic pad for everything else. (check out BetterTouchtool for extra gestures)

My mouse


----------



## sim667 (Dec 12, 2011)

Just read the post on the better touchtool site about sandboxing..... seems pretty shit of apple tbh.

They do seem to be losing their way a bit..... but im not bothered about buying apps through the app store, im quite happy to install them outside of it.


----------



## Structaural (Dec 12, 2011)

It's worked for me for twenty years.

Yep, the appstore sandboxing seems to be a way to force iOS like control on developers.

Good for security, crap for software that improves Apple's like Smartscroll and BetterTouch etc...


----------



## strung out (Dec 12, 2011)

my google skills may be failing me, but does anyone know whether it's possible to have a different dock configuration for each virtual desktop in lion?

so for example, on my main desktop all my social/entertainment applications appear on the dock, whereas on my secondary desktop, only my 'professional' apps (word, excel, gimp etc) appear on the dock.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 13, 2011)

Well this is interesting, looks like Apple is going to make iOS6 more widget orientated...



> Apple has officially hired designer Jan-Michael Cart, reports iPhoneinCanada, who is well-known for his iOS concept videos, such as a unique system for implementing widgets (seen below), dynamic icons, and more.


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2011)

Well widgets are one of the few things left that Apple needs to add to iOS, but hiring someone as an intern is not exactly a reliable guide to forthcoming features in a specific OS version.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 13, 2011)

elbows said:


> Well widgets are one of the few things left that Apple needs to add to iOS, but hiring someone as an intern is not exactly a reliable guide to forthcoming features in a specific OS version.



Ok then drop the 6 and say it's iOS, happy? It's clear Apple would never do something has get someone as high profile in house if they weren't looking to do something in this area.


----------



## Structaural (Dec 14, 2011)

I got tons of widgets - I call them apps and they fuck off when I'm done with them.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 14, 2011)

Structaural said:


> I got tons of widgets - I call them apps and they fuck off when I'm done with them.



Heh well exactly, and with the notification centre I get all the updates that are most relevant to me without a stream of crap I don't want. If I need to scan updates opening the app is pretty fucking snappy and good enough for my needs!


----------



## editor (Dec 14, 2011)

Widgets are a far superior system and I'm confident that Apple will indeed adopt them in time, just like they copied the Android notifications system.


----------



## Structaural (Dec 14, 2011)

As usual you don't know what you're talking about.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 14, 2011)

I'm a professional and social media 'power user' (don't really like the term but you get the point) and along with others like me have yet to see the real value in them (a pretty even split of iPhone and Android users I might add).

They're good for the crowd who like to go 'look at this cool thing' etc, but for pro use? I'm not so sure...


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2011)

Pro use? Give me a break. I switched to android simply to get a larger screen and widgets, and the widgets have been every bit as useful as I hoped. Its bloody handy to be able to quickly flip between multiple bits of info from disparate sources & apps, often on the same screen if the widget isn't too large. In my case this means being able to see the latest messages from several different email accounts on one screen without actually launching the email app, along with a todo list list and a few other bits and bobs = rather handy. And the bar that lets me toggle certain device functionality on and off is a lot handier than having to go into settings. Im sure Id find even more use for them on a tablet due to having more space to display more widgets on one screen, but as Im not a fan of android app range & depth I won't be defecting from the iPad any time soon. Thats also my only gripe about widgets so far, there aren't actually that many different apps that have decent widgets, although again I feel there is more scope to expand on this with tablets.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 16, 2011)

So you monitor social media streams for a living I take it?


----------



## editor (Dec 16, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> They're good for the crowd who like to go 'look at this cool thing' etc, but for pro use? I'm not so sure...


What the fuck is "pro" use?

How you can argue that it's somehow better to have to click in and out of an individual app every single time you want to check the latest news, see updates, check to do lists, switch music tracks, check calendar appointments, change settings, turn on things, get the weather for the next 24 hours, get directions, search straight from the home screen and all the other things that widgets are good for is utterly beyond me.


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2011)

Or to put it another way, I found that now that modern smartphones & tablets are so nice, Im even lazier to the point that launching an app seems like a chore sometimes. So its nice to have my most frequently used stuff available not he home screen in a larger than icon form. I know that things like the 4 finger swipe gestures on the iPad for swiping through open applications could be used to somewhat similar effect, but then I find myself wanting a mix of stuff to show up on one screen and widgets seem like a good solution for that.

And lets not kid ourselves that 'cool things' are without further practical depth anymore, its not merely a way of posing pointlessly. This entire generation of smart mobile devices that are actually pleasurable to use were born of stuff that most companies previously thought of as unnecessary polish, but Apple proved them wrong, and whilst not everybody will need widgets it doesn't take long using them to see that they can be far more central & useful to the overall experience than they ever were on desktops & laptops.


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> So you monitor social media streams for a living I take it?



Thankfully not, Im a developer, albeit one who has had little opportunity to develop in recent years due to having a broader and duller it day job. Thats all over now, made redundant, and free to peruse opportunities which will involve widget development on Apple devices if they get round to adding such capabilities before I find something else to do. I may develop Android widgets in the meantime but Im not yet sold on the idea that there is good money to be made from android apps.

Anyway, social media isn't the only thing that mobile devices are used for so your argument doesn't wash with me.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2011)

Apple have managed to block another competitor via patent action, this time it's HTC:


> The ITC has issued a ruling in favor of Apple Inc., banning the sale and import or certain HTC phones in the US. The ruling, which was widely expected to finally be handed down today after being delayed twice, finds that HTC violates a pair of patents held by the Cupertino company regarding the formatting of data (such as phone numbers) in otherwise unstructured documents (such as emails) allowing users to interact with them.
> 
> http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/19/itc-sides-with-apple-bans-sale-and-import-of-some-htc-phones/


Pretty sure my Palm Treo let me interact with phone numbers in text messages and emails ten years ago, but it looks like Apple is claiming copyright on what appear to be hyperlinks [edit: detailed discussion here].


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2011)

Here's the Foss Patents comment on Apple's multiple patent attempts thus far, some of which really are beginning to look like trolling now.



> Either way, this ruling falls far short of anything would force HTC out of the U.S. market in the near term. Also, out of ten patents originally asserted, Apple finally prevailed on only one. Apple will need a higher "hit rate" in the future, and it will have to enforce patents that are greatly more impactful than this one.
> 
> Out of ten patents originally asserted, Apple finally managed to enforce one, and it's one of medium value..
> 
> ...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 19, 2011)

elbows said:


> Thankfully not, Im a developer, albeit one who has had little opportunity to develop in recent years due to having a broader and duller it day job. Thats all over now, made redundant, and free to peruse opportunities which will involve widget development on Apple devices if they get round to adding such capabilities before I find something else to do. I may develop Android widgets in the meantime but Im not yet sold on the idea that there is good money to be made from android apps.
> 
> Anyway, social media isn't the only thing that mobile devices are used for so your argument doesn't wash with me.



Way to miss the point by a country mile...


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2011)

What point was that, oh professional one?


----------



## skyscraper101 (Dec 20, 2011)

editor said:


> Apple have managed to block another competitor via patent action, this time it's HTC:
> 
> Pretty sure my Palm Treo let me interact with phone numbers in text messages and emails ten years ago, but it looks like Apple is claiming copyright on what appear to be hyperlinks [edit: detailed discussion here].



My pre iphone era Nokia let me grab a number from a text message and call it or save it. That's nuts of Apple to claim that's their invention.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2011)

skyscraper101 said:


> My pre iphone era Nokia let me grab a number from a text message and call it or save it. That's nuts of Apple to claim that's their invention.


It seems that they've managed to twist and meld a vintage patent to cover this, despite it being lodged a decade before they'd even entered the mobile market.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2011)

Apple is investing heavily in Israel: http://www.bgr.com/2011/12/20/apple-acquires-israeli-flash-memory-firm-anobit-for-500-million/


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## Kid_Eternity (Dec 20, 2011)

Good move, they want to control their supply chain...


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Good move, they want to control their supply chain...


You all for investment in Israel then?


----------



## sim667 (Dec 20, 2011)

It's not investing directly in 'Israel' tbf.

I would have rather it wasn't an Israeli company though


----------



## Crispy (Dec 20, 2011)

All modern Intel desktop chips owe their heritage to the Israeli division of that company.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 20, 2011)

Heh I can see the fanboys now:

"Apple support the occupation, proof they are pure evil!" etc


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Heh I can see the fanboys now:
> 
> "Apple support the occupation, proof they are pure evil!" etc


You're a bit obsessed with this "fanboy" thing.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2011)

sim667 said:


> I would have rather it wasn't an Israeli company though


Well, that's how I feel. Same applies to other manufacturers too, of course, but Apple's half a billion dollar takeover of this company is a notably massive recent acquisition, and not one I'd personally describe as a "good move."


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 20, 2011)

editor said:


> You're a bit obsessed with this "fanboy" thing.



Yeah sure, from the guy that goes off on one about high fiving at every single product launch that's some compliment.


----------



## sim667 (Dec 20, 2011)

editor said:


> Well, that's how I feel. Same applies to other manufacturers too, of course, but Apple's half a billion dollar takeover of this company is a notably massive recent acquisition, and not one I'd personally describe as a "good move."



But it would still be unfair to judge the acquisition of an independent Israeli company by apple based on the government of the countries actions.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2011)

sim667 said:


> But it would still be unfair to judge the acquisition of an independent Israeli company by apple based on the government of the countries actions.


I just wish they'd invested some place else, that's all. Same applies to other tech firms too.


> Sources inform "Globes" that Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) has decided to open a development center in Israel focusing on semiconductors. The decision was taken even before the company entered into talks to acquire Herzliya-based flash storage solutions provider Anobit Ltd..
> Apple has hired Aharon Aharon, a veteran player in Israel's high tech industry, to lead the new development center.
> 
> *Maximum secrecy*
> ...


Some political discussion here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1134341


----------



## sim667 (Dec 20, 2011)

editor said:


> I just wish they'd invested some place else, that's all. Same applies to other tech firms too.



Yeah don't get me wrong, completely agree


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 20, 2011)

Even with the Israeli PM tweeting a welcome I'd be surprised if this turns into a boycott. It's a brilliant business move for Apple, as to whether this is a morally right one? I doubt any business of Apple's size would pass that test...


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> It's a brilliant business move for Apple....


I'm glad you're so utterly enthralled by it.


----------



## Crispy (Dec 21, 2011)

Structaural said:


> Just came across these: Podcasts by the Ars Techina Mac guy, John Siracusa : http://5by5.tv/hypercritical
> 
> I haven't listened to any, just putting it out there.



If you haven't listened to them, you should. I have listened to loads of them now and Siracusa is an excellent explainer and complainer. His cohost/presenter is a bit dim and annoying but he doesn't get to say much


----------



## Structaural (Dec 22, 2011)

Oh cheers for the reminder, I did get around to listening to the podcast about the Jobs biography. He wasn't happy...


----------



## Kanda (Dec 23, 2011)

I'm loving iTunes Match!!!

iMac at work, iMac and Macbook Pro at home, iPad and iPhone all have the same libraries at last!!  (or access to the same libraries)


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 23, 2011)

Heh, haven't been tempted by it tbh, have a Spotify account now which means accessing a lot of music on various devices and machines...


----------



## Kanda (Dec 23, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Heh, haven't been tempted by it tbh, have a Spotify account now which means accessing a lot of music on various devices and machines...



I have 11,000 tracks on my iTunes..

I use Traktor for DJ'ing on the Macbook.. I'll never have left a tune at home again


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## Kid_Eternity (Dec 23, 2011)

Yeah I have tons of giggage music wise on my Mac and iPhone too just not found the need to be able to access it all everywhere, having a spotify premium account has meant I no longer buy music and can get pretty much all of what I want everywhere anyway...


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## elbows (Dec 23, 2011)

I am very happy with iTunes match (mac, iPad, apple tv)


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## FridgeMagnet (Dec 23, 2011)

I thought I'd take a look at iTunes Match - mostly for curiosity tbh but I do also sometimes miss having my music with me on my laptop - and I was quite impressed it matched 11,000 of 18,000-odd tracks straight off.


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## Kid_Eternity (Dec 23, 2011)

Do you have to pay the sub to see what it matches?


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## editor (Dec 23, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Do you have to pay the sub to see what it matches?


£22/year.


----------



## Picadilly Commando (Dec 23, 2011)

Am I right in thinking they're due to upgrade the Macbook? Was toying with getting one this week but I couldn't bring myself to part £1,500 for a spec that would have been impressive three years ago but now is quite standard.

Probably end up buying a Sony Vaio in the sales anyway.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 23, 2011)

Picadilly Commando said:


> Am I right in thinking they're due to upgrade the Macbook? Was toying with getting one this week but I couldn't bring myself to part £1,500 for a spec that would have been impressive three years ago but now is quite standard.
> 
> Probably end up buying a Sony Vaio in the sales anyway.


They released a new model Macbook Pro in October. It will be a while before a new one appears.


----------



## Bungle73 (Dec 29, 2011)

Developers make 4x the revene from iPhone and 2x from iPad as they do from Android. 

http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/20/di...s-love-ios-iphone-4x-android-revenue-ipad-2x/


----------



## editor (Dec 29, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> Developers make 4x the revene from iPhone and 2x from iPad as they do from Android.
> 
> http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/20/di...s-love-ios-iphone-4x-android-revenue-ipad-2x/


Trouble is, their calculations don't include advertising revenue, which is a main source of revenue for Android devs, as a reader noted:



			
				author said:
			
		

> We focused on the revenue that is generated by the payment systems supported by the stores only. Therefore we have looked at the revenue generated by in-app purchases and the one-off fee for paid apps only for both the Apple App Stores and Google Android Market.
> Hence the revenue figures don't include advertisement revenue.






			
				reader comment said:
			
		

> Thanks for the clarification. It's also what I suspected, but it's not what the article is claiming. Reading the title and the all important "introductory paragraph", the article boldly claims that the IPhone marketplace is 4x as profitable as Androids.
> 
> But your statistics don't include any advertising revenue at all. An incredibly popular revenue strategy on the Android platform.
> 
> Do you think your analysis can be used to make the titular claim without clarification?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 29, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They released a new model Macbook Pro in October. It will be a while before a new one appears.



April/ May by the look of it...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 29, 2011)

Bungle73 said:


> Developers make 4x the revene from iPhone and 2x from iPad as they do from Android.
> 
> http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/20/di...s-love-ios-iphone-4x-android-revenue-ipad-2x/



Doesn't surprise me really...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 29, 2011)

I suspect that ad revenue is basically buttons on both platforms except for the most popular apps (as it is on the web) - and iOS apps can have ads, too, of course.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Dec 31, 2011)

Jony Ive received a Knighthood amongst the New Year honours. A curious choice...


----------



## maldwyn (Dec 31, 2011)

An OBE

corrected


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 31, 2011)

Well, at least he actually does something beyond donating to the Tories, I suppose.


----------



## editor (Dec 31, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Well, at least he actually does something beyond donating to the Tories, I suppose.


Yes. He makes the world's richest tech company even richer in America while contributing nothing to Britain. Hooray!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 31, 2011)

editor said:


> Yes. He makes the world's richest tech company even richer in America while contributing nothing to Britain. Hooray!


Oh, sorry, there was me forgetting that he worked for the most evil group in history. I was just thinking that at least he has a real job and gives a good impression of the country as opposed to simply being a huge rich crook. Bit naive I know.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Dec 31, 2011)

You know, I was speculatively pricing up a Macbook Air vs a Thinkpad X1 as something small and high-quality to run Linux on and to my surprise, the Air came out looking like better value for money ...


----------



## editor (Dec 31, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I was just thinking that at least he has a real job and gives a good impression of the country as opposed to simply being a huge rich crook. Bit naive I know.


How does leaving the country to make a fortune for yourself while working for a rich American corporate and giving nothing back give a 'good impression of the country?'

He's a great designer, but I'm struggling to see what he's done for Britain that's so amazing that he deserves a knighthood.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 31, 2011)

editor said:


> How does leaving the country to make a fortune for yourself while working for a rich American corporate and giving nothing back give a 'good impression of the country?'
> 
> He's a great designer, but I'm struggling to see what he's done for Britain that's so amazing that he deserves a knighthood.


His British background is consistently referred to, which given how well known he is gives a good impression of British designers. (Not a very good impression of Britain as a country which talented people stay in, mind you.)

I think the whole honours thing is complete bullshit, but at least he actually has a proper job.


----------



## maldwyn (Dec 31, 2011)

It's an OBE not a Knighthood

corrected


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 31, 2011)

maldwyn said:


> It's an OBE not a Knighthood


It's a KBE.


----------



## maldwyn (Dec 31, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It's a KBE.


Ops, so sorry people. The paper I read this morning said it was an OBE.

But a Knighthood wtf for?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 31, 2011)

maldwyn said:


> Ops, so sorry people. The paper a read this morning said it was an OBE.
> 
> But a Knighthood wtf for?


"Services to design and enterprise" - http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/60009/supplements/24

He already has a CBE for that.


----------



## editor (Dec 31, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> His British background is consistently referred to


Yet he left the UK years and years ago, all his work is for an American company and while he's busy lining his pockets abroad he gives fuck all back to this country (afaik).

He's a brilliant designer. He's done wonders for Apple. But for Britain? Not much at all past the fact that he happened to be have been born here and I can't see how that makes him worthy of a knighthood.


----------



## maldwyn (Dec 31, 2011)

Sir Johnny of Cupertino


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 1, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Well, at least he actually does something beyond donating to the Tories, I suppose.



Indeed. Google are actually closer to the Tories than Apple which given the political nature of these things is a little curious...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 1, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> You know, I was speculatively pricing up a Macbook Air vs a Thinkpad X1 as something small and high-quality to run Linux on and to my surprise, the Air came out looking like better value for money ...



That's quite a controversial thing to say! On what basis did it come out better value for money?


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jan 1, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> That's quite a controversial thing to say! On what basis did it come out better value for money?



Well, they were pretty close to be fair, but I think the Air edged it on price when you factored in an upgrade to a usably large SSD and on ergonomic factors otherwise.

This was in the summer. Dunno whether it'd still be true. I was only looking at brands I'd used before and had confidence in. I'm sure there are cheaper Acers or whatever.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 1, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Well, they were pretty close to be fair, but I think the Air edged it on price when you factored in an upgrade to a usably large SSD and on ergonomic factors otherwise.
> 
> This was in the summer. Dunno whether it'd still be true. I was only looking at brands I'd used before and had confidence in. I'm sure there are cheaper Acers or whatever.



Fair enough, was surprised as we don't tend to get a reasonable approach to things like this on urban too often...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 3, 2012)

New event coming, the usual speculation but apparently it's not Apple TV or iPad 3, something to do with publishing and iBooks?



> _According to the source the event will not involve any hardware and instead will focus on publishing and eBooks (sold through Apple’s iBooks platform) rather than iAds. Attendance also be more publishing industry-oriented than consumer._
> 
> _The event will unveil improvements to the iBooks platform according to the same source, and is not “major.”_



Not major but still 'news'?


----------



## paolo (Jan 3, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> New event coming, the usual speculation but apparently it's not Apple TV or iPad 3, something to do with publishing and iBooks?
> 
> 
> 
> Not major but still 'news'?



Gotta be more substantial than iPod socks.


----------



## editor (Jan 3, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Indeed. Google are actually closer to the Tories than Apple which given the political nature of these things is a little curious...


Google gives vast amounts of money to a very wide range of charitable causes, grants, non-profits and technology projects while Apple appear to pocket all the cash for themselves.

It has also heavily promoted gay rights in the workplace, heavily invested in green energy and funded projects like the International Justice Mission (IJM), BBC World Service Trust, Action Aid and Aide et Action (battling slavery in the modern era), the African Leadership Academy and the Afghan Institute of Learning. AFAICS, Apple gives diddly squat to anyone, preferring to share their vast profits amongst their wealthy directors and shareholders.

I'm not saying that Google don't do nasty corporate things too, of course, but I'd love to hear your reasoning why you think that they are "closer to the Tories than Apple."


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2012)

The way you've just described them makes them sound closer to the Tories of some years back during their 'lets change our logo to a nice tree' stage


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2012)

As for Apple I put their relative lack of charity work down to an exceedingly puffed up belief that the great wonders they offer to humanity are their bloody products, and thats all they need to give back to the world because the stuff is so darn great. The occasional exception here and there but thats mostly it. Will be interesting to see this change as Jobs influence on how the company operates fades into history.


----------



## editor (Jan 3, 2012)

elbows said:


> The way you've just described them makes them sound closer to the Tories of some years back during their 'lets change our logo to a nice tree' stage


Tories big on charity, gay rights and helping African charities then?


----------



## editor (Jan 3, 2012)

elbows said:


> As for Apple I put their relative lack of charity work down to an exceedingly puffed up belief that the great wonders they offer to humanity are their bloody products, and thats all they need to give back to the world because the stuff is so darn great.


"_Relative_ lack of charity work...."?
I'll have some of the drugs you're on please.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 3, 2012)

paolo999 said:


> Gotta be more substantial than iPod socks.



Haha very true!


----------



## maldwyn (Jan 3, 2012)

Probably text books orientated.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 3, 2012)

Yup, it's looking that way...all the stories about this are saying it's basically the same thing which means they're either all very wrong or right...


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2012)

editor said:


> "_Relative_ lack of charity work...."?
> I'll have some of the drugs you're on please.



Whilst their philanthropy in no way matches up to their income, I can hardly claim that they do no charity stuff at all. For example they were involved in that (RED) 'buy these products and do good in the fight against AIDS in Africa' stuff, and staff charity donation matching.

http://money.aol.co.uk/2011/09/09/apple-charity-move-leaves-tax-question/

Not that corporate charity means all that much to me, as Im sure I already went on about in the past. Im more interested in taxation, and charity as PR is generally offensive to me. Im not going to get into further quarrels with you over this since we already took the corporate IT morality discussion into the extremes of the territory by exploring Samsungs weapons manufacturing division video, and I don't know what else I can add at this point. I don't care if you want to continue to beat on Apple, go for it, but some new weapons would make it a bit more interesting rather than some kind of absurd Smashie & Nicey attitude towards wearing charity on your sleeve. Jobs wasn't into charity, and corporations have a lot of wealth and power, google love to play the caring philanthropist, big deal.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2012)




----------



## editor (Jan 3, 2012)

elbows said:


> Whilst their philanthropy in no way matches up to their income, I can hardly claim that they do no charity stuff at all.


It's only the tiniest, most microscopic drop in the ocean of their immense, vast fortunes, that only started very recently - and even then it's only offering to match what _the staff_ raise.

No matter how you spin it, Apple could have made a fucking huge difference to a lot of people who desperately need help, but instead chose not to. You may not give a fuck about that, but I do. They're the coolest company on the planet. They should be leading by example, not by greed, IMO.


----------



## editor (Jan 3, 2012)

elbows said:


> --infantile video--


That's a really cheap shot and a pathetic cop out.

Oh well. If you can't have an adult discussion on this, I'll leave you to it.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2012)

I aint spinning it, I look at the world and I do not see corporations doing more good than harm very often. I'd still rather they tried even if they do harm by their nature, since Im not someone who'd rather sit back and wait for perfect forms of organisation and politics to save people. But theres no way I can convincingly get outraged at a particular corporation for not doing its share of charity work. I don't believe that doing good for others should be some noble option that the rich & powerful can choose to undertake in return for our gratitude and adoration. I would deny individuals and entities the power to be able to make such a difference to peoples lives in the first place. And as such I have a very similar attitude towards both Apple and Google, their size, success and dominance is of concern, regardless of quite what they do with that power.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2012)

editor said:


> That's a really cheap shot and a pathetic cop out.
> 
> Oh well. If you can't have an adult discussion on this, I'll leave you to it.



Its more than you deserve. What do you expect you are going to get from such cheesy moral grandstanding, applause?


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2012)

You've also got a bloody nerve suggesting that you can't have an adult discussion with me about these topics, considering how prepared I usually am to make a series of points on this and other issues with little hesitation, often to the point of extreme tediousness. The silly videos and photos that I sometimes post on threads are a basic attempt at trying to balance my extremely serious and waffly side with some sense of fun and finger pointing at the silliness of humanity and its pretentious, including my own. Don't ask me to be even duller than I already am, please.

I've tried to explain my stance on numerous occasions, if you don't agree then fine, if you don't get it then thats not my problem and it doesn't make me a child.


----------



## editor (Jan 3, 2012)

elbows said:


> I aint spinning it, I look at the world and I do not see corporations doing more good than harm very often. I'd still rather they tried even if they do harm by their nature, since Im not someone who'd rather sit back and wait for perfect forms of organisation and politics to save people. But theres no way I can convincingly get outraged at a particular corporation for not doing its share of charity work. I don't believe that doing good for others should be some noble option that the rich & powerful can choose to undertake in return for our gratitude and adoration. I would deny individuals and entities the power to be able to make such a difference to peoples lives in the first place. And as such I have a very similar attitude towards both Apple and Google, their size, success and dominance is of concern, regardless of quite what they do with that power.


I don't give a flying fuck about ' gratitude and adoration.' I give a fuck about those who have the wealth and the influence to make things better for people doing something NOW about it, rather than just raking in more wealth for themselves.

Yeah, it shouldn't be up to corporations/evil capitalism/evil system yadda yadda yadda, but in the real world, a company as massive and as influential as Apple could easily have a very real difference to millions over the years. I'm talking about saving lives. Improving the miserable lot of millions. But they don't.

Instead, they keep all the cash stuffed in their fat pockets while everyone thinks they're the coolest cats in town and wealthy kids high five the staff in gross celebrations of capitalism. And you post up Smashie and Nicey videos when I try and discuss it.

Oh and before I get all the tedious "I hate Apple" shite, I pick on them because they're the most successful, richest, most influential and coolest tech company on the planet with - afaik - the worst record for charity. So that makes them a legitimate target, although there's plenty of smaller companies to choose from.


----------



## tarannau (Jan 3, 2012)

Yes dear, it's not at all as you coming across as unbalanced as a half-legged table when it comes to Apple. It's getting embarrassingly beyond parody now, complete with the obligatory mention of high fives yet again.


----------



## editor (Jan 3, 2012)

tarannau said:


> Yes dear, it's not at all as you coming across as unbalanced as a half-legged table when it comes to Apple. It's getting embarrassingly beyond parody now, complete with the obligatory mention of high fives yet again.


Nice personal attack there, but what's your personal take on one of the world's richest corporates not giving anything to charity? Any opinion?


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2012)

I didn't just post a Smashie and Nicey video though did I, I said a bunch of other stuff as well. And the Smashie and Nicie stuff was an extreme example to me of one of the pitfalls about the public side of charity work, and some of the bad feelings that flow through my body when its discussed in certain ways. Its fair enough that you didn't like it because I expect it was partly perceived as taking this piss out of you, which was indeed part of my intent.

Theres nothing wrong with you wanting to see some of Apples resources directed towards good causes. I have my eyes on different sorts of redistribution of wealth, and the economic state of the world and potential for radical change as we travel through these challenging times. No corporation is likely to be the sort of difference maker that I want to see, but just because Im not intereted in looking in that direction does not mean that I think others are fools for trying to hold corporations to account. Go for it, though in your case you could easily defend against the suggestion that its all just part of your beef with Apple, by picking at least one other corporate target to get all passionate about in the same way. Apple have silly cash reserves but they are not the only big beast out there, and they aren't the only ones that rely on having a cool image that is detached from reality.

Perhaps thats the essential difference, that I don't see Apple as being all that much of a stand-out really, their cool image is not very deep really, it doesn't mean that much, I don't see it as a great resource that can be redirected in a manner that delivers meaningful help on humanities journey through a tricky century. Nor do I see it as the perfect symbol to attack in our age, for the main active fronts in the struggle seem to lie elsewhere so far.

Perhaps we are looking at the problem from the wrong end. Rather than try to reform Apple so that it does good, consider what it is that has enabled Apple to be so effective in a few areas, and see if any of this success could be replicated in a vehicle that is genuinely designed from the offset to benefit humans going forwards in a  way that todays manufacturing and retail corporations will never manage. The present cool will fade naturally, focus on a future something that could be both deep and cool perhaps.


----------



## editor (Jan 3, 2012)

elbows said:


> Perhaps thats the essential difference, that I don't see Apple as being all that much of a stand-out really, their cool image is not very deep really, it doesn't mean that much, I don't see it as a great resource that can be redirected in a manner that delivers meaningful help on humanities journey through a tricky century.


They're one of the biggest companies on the planet (they were #1 in August 2011) while having the worst charitable record, one of the worst environmental records for a tech company and a poor record on workers rights. They are also seen as the 'coolest' company. I'd say that makes them a 'stand out' target.

Anyway, I'm done here as I can see the way that this is going.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2012)

editor said:


> They're one of the biggest companies on the planet (they were #1 in August 2011) while having the worst charitable record, one of the worst environmental records for a tech company and a poor record on workers rights. They are also seen as the 'coolest' company. I'd say that makes them a 'stand out' target.
> 
> Anyway, I'm done here as I can see the way that this is going.



Well in the past whenever we have discussed environmental or workers rights issues, my issue has been much the same. Apple bad, but huge numbers of others also just as bad, and even less visible. Apple are such an obvious target that others already attack them and draw attention to this stuff, so no need for me to get all excited and act like there is a secret injustice being carried out by an entity that most people simply love and think is an oh so wonderful thing. No, cynicism took us way beyond that point a long time ago. Absolutely nothing in the Apple story gives me cause to re-evaluate the depths that corporate horror has reached, nor makes any of the future dystopian nightmares seem much more likely or imminent. Apple is just a typical consumer behemoth enjoying its time of great success, making silly money in the usual exploitative ways, and wearing the sort of smugly cool veneer that modern PR gives us as standard in this silly era. Im more concerned with the net side of things, what a few key companies could do in this space that will affect us all so much in future, and what may lurk behind supposed benevolence. Information is power too, and in that realm you know I am concerned that the likes of Google have even more potentially destructive reserves than Apple have with their money.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 3, 2012)

Here's one way Apple could make the world a better place without the nicey & smashy style charity love in.


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## bi0boy (Jan 3, 2012)

So....when's the iPad3 coming out?


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## elbows (Jan 3, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Here's one way Apple could make the world a better place without the nicey & smashy style charity love in.



Doing genuinely good stuff with supply chains is one area Im quite keen on, since if done in a meaningful way it would actually make a difference to one of the problems these corporations create, rather than taking a chunk of the profit they've made from horror in one realm and using it to do good somewhere else. And minerals & Africa always deserve more attention.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2012)

bi0boy said:


> So....when's the iPad3 coming out?



I believe the assumptions are tending towards an announcement by March or April, but the rumour mill will probably get quite wacky as they already overdid the rumours that could be true quite a long time ago, and are left with not much of substance to go on about until Apple to the official unveiling. Recently I have seen a trickle of silly guesses about the date and photos of various uninteresting parts that are alleged to be for the iPad 3.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 3, 2012)

elbows said:


> Doing genuinely good stuff with supply chains is one area Im quite keen on, since if done in a meaningful way it would actually make a difference to one of the problems these corporations create, rather than taking a chunk of the profit they've made from horror in one realm and using it to do good somewhere else. And minerals & Africa always deserve more attention.



Yup, agree, especially regarding Africa and its natural resources. Charity tends to be bit of a red herring when it comes to corporations; this would be a real change and one that could have a profound affect on the entire industry while saving lives. Would prefer that to them giving a few million to shut up Apple haters every now and then...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 3, 2012)

bi0boy said:


> So....when's the iPad3 coming out?



Probably the usual time March/ April although there were a flurry of supply chain inspired rumours suggest it may be as soon as end of Feb...I guess we'll know for sure soon enough!


----------



## editor (Jan 5, 2012)

Does Apple own Steve Jobs’ likeness?








> Apple 'threatens legal action' over Steve Jobs action doll
> he makers of an action figure with an uncanny resemblance to the late Apple founder Steve Jobs are reportedly being 'threatened with legal action' by the computing giant.
> 
> ...Apple reportedly stipulates in a letter to the Chinese manufacturer that any toy that resembles the technology company's logo, person's name, appearance or likeness of its products is a criminal offence.
> ...


I like this touch!


> The doll also has a spare pair of hands, which can be replaced to make the figure point in a typical Steve Jobs gesture.


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## skyscraper101 (Jan 5, 2012)

In fairness to Ive, he's reportedly fairly secret about what he does in all aspects of life, so we may not know if he's upto any charity business. He did recently return to his native Staffordshire on a visit to JCB for some reason - we don't know what exactly it was for because he was prevented (by Apple) from giving any interviews.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 5, 2012)

skyscraper101 said:


> In fairness to Ive, he's reportedly fairly secret about what he does in all aspects of life, so we may not know if he's upto any charity business. He did recently return to his native Staffordshire on a visit to JCB for some reason - we don't know what exactly it was for because he was prevented (by Apple) from giving any interviews.



The concept that if you don't see publicity about a celeb giving money to charity means they don't is a flawed one tbh. Plenty give millions but you never hear about it because it's done on the QT...


----------



## tarannau (Jan 5, 2012)

Yep, there's no guarantee that Jobs didn't leave a shedload of cash to charity privately in his will. If anything, given the tax breaks on offer it's unlikely that some provision wasn't made through trusts or other investment vehicles.


----------



## editor (Jan 5, 2012)

tarannau said:


> Yep, there's no guarantee that Jobs didn't leave a shedload of cash to charity privately in his will.


He may have flown rocket ships to the Moon too.

What definitely _did_ happen was that Jobs cut Apple's philanthropic programme as soon as he rejoined the company in 1997, and never reinstated it. He's also never publicly given money to charity, despite his huge wealth. [source]


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 5, 2012)

tarannau said:


> Yep, there's no guarantee that Jobs didn't leave a shedload of cash to charity privately in his will. If anything, given the tax breaks on offer it's unlikely that some provision wasn't made through trusts or other investment vehicles.



Yup. The lack of publicity over this type of things is a very flawed way of assessing someone's charitable given. If you think about it millions of people give money to charity but don't make a big deal about it so why should that change just because someone has money?


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## tarannau (Jan 5, 2012)

More cynically, I'd be positively amazed if Jobs didn't take advantage of the generous tax breaks and dodges available, if only because it'd actually be likely to minimise the costs to his estate. There's more on Forbes on the subject if anyone can be arsed to browse. Good old American philanthropy eh.


----------



## editor (Jan 5, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yup. The lack of publicity over this type of things is a very flawed way of assessing someone's charitable given. If you think about it millions of people give money to charity but don't make a big deal about it so why should that change just because someone has money?


Apple could have raised billions for charities without even impacting on their own vast profits. They could have lead by example, set up academies, trusts, and helped millions of people or just endorsed worthy projects and charities.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 5, 2012)

tarannau said:


> More cynically, I'd be positively amazed if Jobs didn't take advantage of the generous tax breaks and dodges available, if only because it'd actually be likely to minimise the costs to his estate. There's more on Forbes on the subject if anyone can be arsed to browse. Good old American philanthropy eh.



Heh yeah...


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jan 6, 2012)

'iPad 4' Headed for October Launch with iPad 3 as Interim Upgrade

An official rumour speculates.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jan 6, 2012)

What on earth is an official rumour?


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2012)

Global Stoner said:


> What on earth is an official rumour?


It's just more pointless bullshit peddled by dishonest websites for the circle-jerk gratification of fanboys and other tech sites.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2012)

The user comment on that page has just as much chance of being accurate:


> And don't forget the iPad 5 to be released in December 2012 in time for the holiday season.
> 
> Then get ready for 2013. "The Year of the iPad". New iPads every month!


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jan 6, 2012)

editor said:


> It's just more pointless bullshit peddled by dishonest websites for the circle-jerk gratification of fanboys and other tech sites.



Exactly.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jan 6, 2012)

No, it's totally official. It's on macrumors.com so it's an _official_ rumour.

Based on this news I'm gonna hold out for the iPad 6 I reckon.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2012)

skyscraper101 said:


> No, it's totally official. It's on macrumors.com so it's an _official_ rumour.
> 
> Based on this news I'm gonna hold out for the iPad 6 I reckon.


iPad 7 is out next month. It's going to have a massive fold out flexible 125,000 x 98,000 pixels screen that doubles up as a parachute and surfboard.

I read it on DigitTimes so it must be true.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 6, 2012)

The quality of Apple rumours is going down.

That's because Apple are using up old stock, as they're going to release a 7" iRumour πGS in March.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2012)

LOL it's just SEO/traffic driving! All websites aim for traffic in some way why does anyone expect a particular tech site to be any different?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2012)

Well this certainly is a more interesting piece of news than the new iPad coming out in Q1:



> Judging by a new job listing on Microsoft’s career site, the company may be preparing to bring the Xbox Live experience to iOS and other playforms, which would bring a swarm of popular new games to the App Store.​



Have to say I'm increasingly impressed with Microsoft and this latest move suggests some interesting stuff on the horizon. Their xbox live app for iOS is excellent and show just how well they can work on other platforms.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> LOL it's just SEO/traffic driving! All websites aim for traffic in some way why does anyone expect a particular tech site to be any different?


The better tech sites don't fill up their pages with near-daily made up stories, daft rumours and fact-free 'insights'  about non existent Apple products.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2012)

editor said:


> The better tech sites don't fill up their pages with near-daily made up stories, daft rumours and fact-free 'insights' about non existent Apple products.



Nah they waste their times complaining about the colour of an iPhone.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Nah they waste their times complaining about the colour of an iPhone.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2012)

Looks like Apple are going to make an even bigger ton of cash with this shrewd business move:









> _According to a source familiar with Apple's plans, the company plans to begin operating Apple-branded areas within 25 larger Target stores in locations which can't support a standalone Apple Store._
> 
> _The initial opening would be a small start, given that Target, the second-largest discount retail chain in the US, operates 1752 stores in the US._



A far more credible rumour than the usual pick an iDevice, add a higher and say it's coming out at the time the last version did the year before...


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Jan 6, 2012)

US store opens apple department. Excuse me whilst I yawn.


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## editor (Jan 6, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Looks like Apple are going to make an even bigger ton of cash with this shrewd business move:
> A far more credible rumour than the usual pick an iDevice, add a higher and say it's coming out at the time the last version did the year before...


But a deadly dull rumour, none the less. It's hardly a revolutionary retail concept and who gives a fuck about Target?


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2012)

Global Stoner said:


> US store opens apple department. Excuse me whilst I yawn.



You're excused, mind you don't catch too many flies.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2012)

editor said:


> But a deadly dull rumour, none the less. It's hardly a revolutionary retail concept.



LOL so if the rumours are interesting they're crap if they're likely to be true they're dull? Who said it was revolutionary, clearly it's going to make they a shit load of money and their shareholders will LOVE that.


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## maldwyn (Jan 6, 2012)

A bit like the Apple table at Currys PC World, then


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 6, 2012)

maldwyn said:


> A bit like the Apple table at Currys PC World, then



Yup but without the feeling dirty you get from going into PC World.


----------



## editor (Jan 6, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> LOL so if the rumours are interesting they're crap if they're likely to be true they're dull? Who said it was revolutionary, clearly it's going to make they a shit load of money and their shareholders will LOVE that.


Sounds like you'll LOVE it too.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 7, 2012)

They've been doing it at other shops for years - I got my first Mac from an Apple area in a Best Buy in 2003. (I remember the guy there saying people came from a long way around to copy software from the demo machines to their iPods, which he was fine with  )

I suppose any news value is that Target is a very large, general purpose chain with a lot of reach, rather than being specifically a consumer electronics shop.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 7, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They've been doing it at other shops for years - I got my first Mac from an Apple area in a Best Buy in 2003. (I remember the guy there saying people came from a long way around to copy software from the demo machines to their iPods, which he was fine with  )
> 
> I suppose any news value is that Target is a very large, general purpose chain with a lot of reach, rather than being specifically a consumer electronics shop.



Yup and like I said any move thats going to increase profits substantially will always be noteworthy...


----------



## editor (Jan 11, 2012)

There's definitely a silver lining to Apple's legendarily miserly attitude towards charity if you're one of their company directors: you get to trouser the biggest, fattest pay packets in town. Hurray!



> *Apple chief Tim Cook set to top US pay league*
> 
> Apple's late founder Steve Jobs created the world's most valuable company and was paid just $5 in the last years of his life – but his successor Tim Cook, unknown outside Silicon Valley until his elevation to the top job last summer, has been awarded a $378m (£244m) payjackpot.
> 
> ...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 11, 2012)

Corporate leader gains huge packet due to corporate success at capitalism shocker!


----------



## maldwyn (Jan 11, 2012)

It's an embarrassing pay package - presumably if stock falls so does his remuneration - but who knew Woz is worth a 100 mil?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 11, 2012)

maldwyn said:


> It's an embarrassing pay package - presumably if stock falls so does his remuneration - but who knew Woz is worth a 100 mil?



I wouldn't mind being embarrassed by that pay packet!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 11, 2012)

So, education text book event then.


----------



## magneze (Jan 11, 2012)

Training children to be better consumers through the magic of iPad. Revolutionary. Visionary.

*throws up a little*


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 11, 2012)

magneze said:


> Training children to be better consumers through the magic of iPad. Revolutionary. Visionary.
> 
> *throws up a little*



Better that than they growing up to become crack dealers or worse?


----------



## magneze (Jan 11, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Better that than they growing up to become crack dealers or worse?


Yep, they are the only two options available to children these days.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 11, 2012)

Well, there _is _a lot of money in crack...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 11, 2012)

magneze said:


> Yep, they are the only two options available to children these days.



Pretty much now the EMA has been cut...


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jan 12, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Better that than they growing up to become crack dealers or worse?



Crack dealing pays. Match made in heaven, they can afford to buy a new Macbook.


----------



## siramone (Jan 12, 2012)

editor said:


> There's definitely a silver lining to Apple's legendarily miserly attitude towards charity if you're one of their company directors: you get to trouser the biggest, fattest pay packets in town. Hurray!



For being at Apple for 15 odd years the basic pay for Tim Cook is in comparison low ($900,000) to the indicated UK directors of FTSE 500.(£5,100,000)

Considering he has 376,000 shares it will be interesting to see if the additional 1M share incentive to stay at Apple for 10 years is something that is part of his motivation of being CEO. He could sell up and leave.

Yet the article states that "no performance criteria is attached". This is weird- for 10 years!!
It implies a business tactic by Apple to keep headhunters away- initiated a long time ago.

Maybe Tim Cook is adopting the strategy of Carlos Tevez


----------



## editor (Jan 12, 2012)

siramone said:


> For being at Apple for 15 odd years the basic pay for Tim Cook is in comparison low ($900,000) to the indicated UK directors of FTSE 500.(£5,100,000)


He took home nearly* $2m in cash* last year - that's just one year's wage - and he was given stock that's now worth around $550m.

I don't see many UK directors matching that.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 12, 2012)

Global Stoner said:


> Crack dealing pays. Match made in heaven, they can afford to buy a new Macbook.



Haha good point!


----------



## Badgers (Jan 12, 2012)

When I saw the headline 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-16536953


----------



## editor (Jan 12, 2012)

Badgers said:


> When I saw the headline
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-16536953


"Tom Clarke, 26, from Hove, in Sussex, _*either lost*_ or had his iPad stolen while shopping in a Tesco store...

Mr Clarke said he had gone shopping in a Tesco store on 18 December in Holmbush Shopping Centre, in Shoreham, *using his iPad as a shopping list.*"


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 12, 2012)

I have to admit that I was in Tescos with an iPad earlier. It was in my bag though. For shopping lists I tend to prefer the alternative iPieceOfPaperAndPen.


----------



## editor (Jan 12, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I have to admit that I was in Tescos with an iPad earlier. It was in my bag though. For shopping lists I tend to prefer the alternative iPieceOfPaperAndPen.


Much as it is a lovely device, I would suggest that it is a completely over the top solution for a shopping list and almost an invite for a purloining.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 12, 2012)

Badgers said:


> When I saw the headline
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-16536953



LOL! Yeah saw this one earlier, funny story, dunno why he just didn't use his phone for his shopping list, iPad is pretty fucking excessive!


----------



## Badgers (Jan 12, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:
			
		

> LOL! Yeah saw this one earlier, funny story, dunno why he just didn't use his phone for his shopping list, iPad is pretty fucking excessive!



I am amazed a man has a shopping list in any format.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Jan 12, 2012)

I've seen blokes wandering around Waitrose with a Jamie Oliver cookery book as their shopping list.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 12, 2012)

Badgers said:


> I am amazed a man has a shopping list in any format.



You must live a very sheltered life. It's far from unusual in my experience...


----------



## siramone (Jan 13, 2012)

editor said:


> He took home nearly* $2m in cash* last year - that's just one year's wage - and he was given stock that's now worth around $550m.
> 
> I don't see many UK directors matching that.



If a UK company was as successful and profitable then it would be matched but none are as good as making money as Apple.
The main point is that as a director you can:- Either take a high yearly salary as in the UK FT companies or be presented with options of millions of US stock/share if you can commit and run a healthy business for a few years.


----------



## Bungle73 (Jan 13, 2012)

Badgers said:


> I am amazed a man has a shopping list in any format.


I always take a shopping list when I do the shopping; otherwise I wouldn't know what I'm supposed to by buying.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jan 13, 2012)

I'm hardcore and never take a shopping list.


----------



## magneze (Jan 13, 2012)

I've started taking photos of recipes on my phone and using that. Works really well. Using a tablet is just silly.


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## maldwyn (Jan 13, 2012)

I use my phone to shop lots of times - notes for list and camera for trickier products looking to match - text to the other half etc. I don't have an iPad (waiting for version 6) but what with cloud synch and my reduced vision I can see how one might be tempted to whip out an iPad rather than squint at an iPhone.


----------



## Structaural (Jan 13, 2012)

I use a free app called ShopShop as I have the memory of sieve and can never find a pen..

If you thought they went a bit mad in America when a new iPhone is released; in China they've had to send in SWAT to stop the fighting outside the Apple Store, after they ran out of phones:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...ing-debut-delayed-as-main-store-unopened.html


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## sim667 (Jan 13, 2012)

I very rarely make a shopping list, if i do its on my phone as that would be in my pocket at the shops anyway.


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## editor (Jan 13, 2012)

Structaural said:


> If you thought they went a bit mad in America when a new iPhone is released; in China they've had to send in SWAT to stop the fighting outside the Apple Store, after they ran out of phones:
> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...ing-debut-delayed-as-main-store-unopened.html


Nice.


> About 60 migrant workers, hired by resellers to line up last night outside Apple’s store in Beijing’s Xidan, weren’t paid the 120 yuan ($19) they were promised because they failed to get an iPhone 4S after the 12-hour wait, according to several of them, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal. They came by bus from a labor market in the suburbs and received only a 10-yuan food allowance, they said.


----------



## Structaural (Jan 13, 2012)

That is fucked up.


----------



## kained&able (Jan 13, 2012)

after twitter kicked up a masisve stink about google favouring g+ results in their own search engine and accusing them of being a monopoly blah blah blah. Today they announce they have signed a deal with apple to intergrate twitter into the next IOS operating system.

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/06/14/apple-makes-huge-announcement-about-twitter/

dave


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 13, 2012)

kained&able said:


> after twitter kicked up a masisve stink about google favouring g+ results in their own search engine and accusing them of being a monopoly blah blah blah. Today they announce they have signed a deal with apple to intergrate twitter into the next IOS operating system.
> 
> http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/06/14/apple-makes-huge-announcement-about-twitter/
> 
> dave


...er, would that be an announcement from last June about iOS 5 which has already come out?


----------



## sim667 (Jan 13, 2012)

No-ones posted up a link about the mass suicide threat at foxconn then?

TBF it was to do with the employees who manufacture xbox.


----------



## editor (Jan 13, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> ...er, would that be an announcement from last June about iOS 5 which has already come out?


The clue would appear to be in the URL!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 13, 2012)

maldwyn said:


> I use my phone to shop lots of times - notes for list and camera for trickier products looking to match - text to the other half etc. I don't have an iPad (waiting for version 6) but what with cloud synch and my reduced vision I can see how one might be tempted to whip out an iPad rather than squint at an iPhone.



I use Evernote, build the list at home, sync then open while in the shop...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 13, 2012)

sim667 said:


> No-ones posted up a link about the mass suicide threat at foxconn then?
> 
> TBF it was to do with the employees who manufacture xbox.



Was thinking of doing a foxconn thread generally as they do work for MS, Lenovo as well as Apple. Makes sense to focus on industry wide problem than provide bait for a flame war between various fanbois...


----------



## sim667 (Jan 13, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Was thinking of doing a foxconn thread generally as they do work for MS, Lenovo as well as Apple. Makes sense to focus on industry wide problem than provide bait for a flame war between various fanbois...



I hear ya on that.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 13, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> fanbois


It's pronounced fan-bwah


----------



## kained&able (Jan 13, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> ...er, would that be an announcement from last June about iOS 5 which has already come out?



apparently so. ive been derided in a few places for that one! Must slearn to read date


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 13, 2012)

sim667 said:


> I hear ya on that.



Yup, these are serious issues, it'd be nice to be able to discuss them without the usual tedium.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Jan 13, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Was thinking of doing a foxconn thread generally as they do work for MS, Lenovo as well as Apple. Makes sense to focus on industry wide problem than provide bait for a flame war between various fanbois...



There's a very interesting _This American Life_ podcast this week, about an Apple fan that goes to the factory...well worth a listen:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory

eta: fixed link (really this time)


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 13, 2012)

I think there is a Foxconn thread somewhere in WorldPol.


----------



## editor (Jan 13, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Was thinking of doing a foxconn thread generally as they do work for MS, Lenovo as well as Apple. Makes sense to focus on industry wide problem than provide bait for a flame war between various fanbois...


There was one posted on Wednesday
http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/foxconn-workers-protest.287114/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 13, 2012)

mwgdrwg said:


> There's a very interesting _This American Life_ podcast this week, aboute an Apple fan that goes to the factory...well worth a listen:
> 
> www.thisamericanlife.org/radio.../mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory



Cool will check out.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Jan 13, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Cool will check out.



I fixed the broken link in my post.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 13, 2012)

Still not working for me...


----------



## maldwyn (Jan 13, 2012)

Try the link below  - just about to start listening

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 13, 2012)

Ah cool yeah that works!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 13, 2012)

An unusual move by Apple (typically obsessively secret) it's listed their suppliers.



> *
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Very interesting...these reports don't get written over night so this must have been a long time coming, and a blatant recognition of the damaging affect of bad PR around this stuff hence the attempt to pre-empt and set the terms of reference...clever move.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 14, 2012)

A surprisingly level headed piece of speculation on what next weeks publishing event may be about and the implications of future Apple business in ebooks:



> Although Apple may initially partner with textbook companies, ultimately textbook publishers will be pushed aside because they’re too slow and inefficient.
> 
> In other words, I think Apple will begin the long process Thursday of reinventing the textbook industry as a stepping stone to eventually reinventing the entire publishing industry.
> 
> ...


----------



## maldwyn (Jan 14, 2012)

Have you seen the price of textbooks, not to mention the scam of frequently 'revised' editions. What's Apple's motivation I wonder?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 14, 2012)

maldwyn said:


> Have you seen the price of textbooks, not to mention the scam of frequently 'revised' editions. What's *Apple's motivation I wonder?*



Profit.


----------



## sim667 (Jan 16, 2012)

Ah I've been wondering where I can get the peachpit book for my ACSP before i do the exam next week.

I bet its on fricking ibooks!


----------



## editor (Jan 16, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Very interesting...these reports don't get written over night so this must have been a long time coming, and a blatant recognition of the damaging affect of bad PR around this stuff hence the attempt to pre-empt and set the terms of reference...clever move.


You may find this more interesting if you're after the full picture:


> Section 5 - Apple’s Audits Cover Up Blood Stained Production
> 
> In the 2011 report published by Apple they made some very subtle changes to how they worded theircommitments. On the Apple website they stated that “Apple is committed to ensuring the highest standards of social responsibility,” but in the next report it had been changed to “Apple is committed to driving the highest standards of social responsibility.”
> 
> ...


Some companies are trying to make a change though:


> Brands which have made positive transformations
> While Apple remains to be highly evasive, if not totally non-responsive, other brands such as Siemens,Vodafone and Nokia have made significant progress toward responsible supply chain management.


It's a shame that this won't be shared as enthusiastically as a made up report about a pink iPhone.


> *Section 8 - Apple Consumers: You Need to Make a Choice*
> 
> As in the previous report showing the other side of Apple, we don’t want to undermine the Apple brand, on the contrary, we would like to see this kind of brand, that is full of creative innovation and design, to be able to make changes, to become a force for pollution and emissions reduction.
> 
> ...


http://www.scribd.com/doc/63681015/IPE-report-The-Other-Side-of-Apple-II


----------



## john x (Jan 16, 2012)

Sorry to butt in here but it saves starting a new thread if I stick this here, and you lot all seem to be pretty clued up on the world off Apple.

I have a 15" Macbook Pro which has OSX 10.5.8 on it which is fine for me but lots of upgrades are being shat off by the installer because they want 10.6 or higher. Apparently 10.7 is the boy to have these days but looking it up on the internet, it says it can only be installed if I have some app that came with 10.6 Does that mean I have to buy 10.6, install it and then have to buy and install 10.7 or is there a way round it?

Also does 10.7 do much more than 10.6? I had a perfectly good G4 Powerbook which I had to replace because none of the new Apple software would work on it.

john x


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 16, 2012)

To get to 10.7 you need 10.6 I think. 10.7 is nice but it's not a 'must have' in the same way that Windows 7 was after abomination that is Vista...


----------



## Structaural (Jan 17, 2012)

Bear in mind 10.7 (Lion) has no Rosseta which means it can't run any PowerPC apps. We just bought a LaCie 1TB here at work and the lacie software that came with it, for formatting and partitioning wouldn't run under Lion as it's a PowerPC app. Back to DiskUtility.
10.6 (Snow Leopard) is probably the most stable and familiar.  And yes, you need to upgrade to 10.6 if you want to go to 10.7.


----------



## sim667 (Jan 17, 2012)

Its a licensing and app store problem rather than a practical reason that lion needs snow leopard files.

Doing a clean install is the way to get round that....... But a bit more difficult in your macbook than it was in my mac pro.

http://www.macworld.com/article/161087/2011/07/install_lion_over_leopard.html

So yes you can install lion without snow leopard, no they dont make it easy. Yes you should check that your hardware first, and no I wouldnt rush out and buy lion, snow leopard is a much much better OS if you can cope without the pretty additions in lion.


----------



## john x (Jan 17, 2012)

Thanks guys.

Looks like I will just go with 10.6 which hopefully will allow all the software updates I need.

john x


----------



## sim667 (Jan 17, 2012)

The only way i can see of doing it is buy a 10.7 usb stick from the shop or get someone to make you one.

Do a clone of your current macbook drive to an external hard drive.

Format you macbook pro disk

Do a clean install from the lion os x usb drive to your macbook pro disk

Use migration assistant to copy your settings, files et all to your macbook pro lion disk.

It will work, its just hassle.


----------



## maldwyn (Jan 17, 2012)

john x said:


> Looks like I will just go with 10.6 which hopefully will allow all the software updates I need.


Can't you borrow a snow leopard disc from someone? Alternativly Apple are still selling them for £26


----------



## sim667 (Jan 17, 2012)

or torrent it.


----------



## john x (Jan 17, 2012)

sim667 said:


> or torrent it.


I have just been looking at that option.

Now I know very little about software but when I see 10 versions of Apple OSX 10.6 on a 'file-sharing' site and none of them are the same file size I worry. Apart from the server versions, shouldn't all the OE versions be EXACTLY the same file size right down to the last 'byte'

This makes me wary of trying to install something as vital as an operating system from a file of unknown provenance.

john x


----------



## Structaural (Jan 17, 2012)

I would go with this (I cross-referenced it with a mac only tracker):

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6782136/Snow_Leo_911_Pro_v1.5


----------



## Structaural (Jan 17, 2012)

^^ That's a miniaturised version for USB sticks with a bunch of useful files on it.

The official disk is over 6GB so you'd need a dual layer CD burner or a large USB stick.

The official disc should be  6,832,375,180 bytes  for 10.6.3. Build 10D575


----------



## john x (Jan 17, 2012)

Structaural said:


> I would go with this (I cross-referenced it with a mac only tracker):
> 
> http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6782136/Snow_Leo_911_Pro_v1.5



That sounds ideal as I'm not interested in all the bells and whistles, just need to be able to update stuff.

Never torrented before, is thepiratebay generally reliable?

john x


----------



## sim667 (Jan 17, 2012)

piratebay is alright yeah.

Before doing it on your mac, I would try installing it to and external HD first


----------



## john x (Jan 17, 2012)

sim667 said:


> piratebay is alright yeah.
> 
> Before doing it on your mac, I would try installing it to and external HD first



You mean downloading it to an external hard drive?

john x


----------



## sim667 (Jan 17, 2012)

No, installing it on an external, booting from it, making sure its got all the vital files and that it runs ok, then doing it on you mac book if everything is ok.

Think of it as having a practice without the chance of it screwing your macbook.


----------



## john x (Jan 17, 2012)

sim667 said:


> No, installing it on an external, booting from it, making sure its got all the vital files and that it runs ok, then doing it on you mac book if everything is ok.
> 
> Think of it as having a practice without the chance of it screwing your macbook.



I see.

So when you start the install, you are asked which volume you want to install it on. It doesn't just start doing it's stuff?

john x


----------



## Structaural (Jan 17, 2012)

It would be useful to mirror your current bootdrive so you can go back to how it was if it doesn't work out.
Using something like Carbon Copy cloner.


----------



## sim667 (Jan 17, 2012)

if you make a bootable drive with it on and boot from that it will ask you. If you try and do it the apple way i dont think it does.

All of this is completely google-able btw.


----------



## john x (Jan 17, 2012)

Structaural said:


> It would be useful to mirror your current bootdrive so you can go back to how it was if it doesn't work out.
> Using something like Carbon Copy cloner.


That's not what Time Machine is then?

john x


----------



## sim667 (Jan 17, 2012)

john x said:


> That's not what Time Machine is then?
> 
> john x



No. Time machine will not give you a bootable backup, only allow you to recover data.


----------



## maldwyn (Jan 18, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


>


Ok, I admit it, I'm curious about what will be announced tomorrow.

Will we see the launch of 'garageband' like tools for DIY multi-media publishing?

Just how far is Apple prepared to go in order to shift its hardware, will they be getting into bed with the gathered publishing executives or will it be more a case of do as we say or we will kill you?

Or perhaps it will be just another damp squib of a launch.


----------



## editor (Jan 18, 2012)

It'll all be about Apple pushing their closed software and hardware systems onto schools. Whoppee.


----------



## sim667 (Jan 18, 2012)

Yeah, i believe theres meant to be an anouncement about like a garageband but for book iyswim....

If they're launching a centralised VLE with subscriptions, they may well dominate the market instantly, the current offerings (moodle and blackboard) are tripe. I've been saying someone needs to release a decent VLE for years, even thought about trying it, but didnt know where to start


----------



## chilango (Jan 18, 2012)

Yeah a decent VLE would be manna from heaven given some of the goddawful stuff I've had to work with. Apple are pushing hard into education at the mo'.

As for it being "closed". School managers will LOVE that. they tend to be petrified of anything open and lock everything IT related down to the point it's almost beyond use. If Apple push a usable, up to date product onto them, well it gets my blessing...


----------



## editor (Jan 18, 2012)

chilango said:


> If Apple push a usable, up to date product onto them, well it gets my blessing...


You think it's fair enough that taxpayers/parents should pay the extra costs then?


----------



## chilango (Jan 18, 2012)

editor said:


> You think it's fair enough that taxpayers/parents should pay the extra costs then?



If it works yeah.

Better than chucking money at products that don't.


----------



## editor (Jan 18, 2012)

chilango said:


> If it works yeah.
> 
> Better than chucking money at products that don't.


The real world manages to function fairly well on more affordable, more open, non-Apple systems, no?


----------



## chilango (Jan 18, 2012)

The real world might. School's I've worked in don't.


----------



## chilango (Jan 18, 2012)

Tbh. I'd love for schools to be using open source, affordable/free, solutions to our IT needs. But ime although the stuff is out there they won't use it. Managers tend to be (understandably) very security conscious about access, about viruses etc., about confidentiality etc etc.

So many won't use these options.

They buy in an "all in one" package. Usually some awful, limited VLE and Microsoft which as the school has invested a large amount of money (often overpaying) in we then_ have_ to use.

Seriously, try using some of the crap that schools force their staff and students to use.

If Apple offer a product that reassures the concerns of the managers re. safety and control and at the same time something that is vene remotely up to date and user friendly then I'll bite their hands off.

You're absolutely right that there are cheaper, more ethical, technically superior alternatives.

We won't get to see them in most schools though.

We might see Apple stuff though.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 18, 2012)

VLE?


----------



## chilango (Jan 18, 2012)

Virtual Learning Environment.

Or as some of my colleagues might put it "It's like Facebook...but for homework!"

Obviously it isn't.


----------



## sim667 (Jan 18, 2012)

editor said:


> You think it's fair enough that taxpayers/parents should pay the extra costs then?



Taxpayers and parents are already paying for moodle and blackboard, both of which are underused, and personally I feel not fit for purpose. However it is a requirement that colleges and schools provide vle's


----------



## sim667 (Jan 18, 2012)

chilango said:


> Virtual Learning Environment.
> 
> Or as some of my colleagues might put it "It's like Facebook...but for homework!"
> 
> Obviously it isn't.



Yeah, apart from you can look up people on it, submit work on it etc. Its more like google docs for schools.


----------



## sim667 (Jan 18, 2012)

editor said:


> The real world manages to function fairly well on more affordable, more open, non-Apple systems, no?



Have you ever worked in a college...... I asked if we could have google sketch installed and was told no as it might 'compromise security'

Schools and colleges dont do open systems.


----------



## editor (Jan 18, 2012)

sim667 said:


> Have you ever worked in a college......


Yes I have. I taught design on Apple computers at Brighton University for two years. The computer experience there was anything but seamless.


----------



## editor (Jan 18, 2012)

sim667 said:


> Schools and colleges dont do open systems.


I said "_more open_" (as in they can shop around for vendors and not be forced into committing to a hardware monopoly).


----------



## sim667 (Jan 18, 2012)

editor said:


> Yes I have. I taught design on Apple computers at Brighton University for two years. The computer experience there was anything but seamless.



Uni's have a lot larger income to spend on facilities, and have to provide top notch stuff because their students are paying. Schools and colleges only have income from funding and evening classes, and have to meet targets to do with use of technology in teaching establishments that universities dont. Uni's and FE colleges/schools are totally uncomparable.

Because of the cuts my job at an FE college is at risk, because of the increase in fees I applied for a london university who can now afford to provide a full photographic and minilab service which they didnt have the funds too at all.

The experience will generally be anything but seemless in education establishments, because they're not willing to pay their techs decent money, or get them specialist training........ I've worked in 6-7 colleges as a digital imaging/IT/Photograhpic/Media technician, i've never been trained in anything except first aid, manual handling and 'equality and diversity' (the last one we do every year)...... All my technical knowledge is either self taught or from self funded courses.


----------



## editor (Jan 18, 2012)

sim667 said:


> Uni's have a lot larger income to spend on facilities, and have to provide top notch stuff because their students are paying.


Not when I taught at Camberwell. You try teaching hand coding when you've got three students to each PC!


----------



## sim667 (Jan 18, 2012)

editor said:


> I said "_more open_" (as in they can shop around for vendors and not be forced into committing to a hardware monopoly).



Thats all very well, but they dont like 'more open' platforms, as it means IT techs will have to do more work. Dont forget IT techs generally choose what gets deployed across the entire campus, so will take every oppurtunity to cut down on the amount of work.

Also if apples offering is web based, then colleges wont need to commit to a hardware monopoly, although it may well pave the way for places to start buying apple products.

Currently the only VLE's need to be run on internal servers, if apple can take away that responsibility and run decent customer support, schools will seriously think about it.


----------



## sim667 (Jan 18, 2012)

editor said:


> Not when I taught at Camberwell. You try teaching hand coding when you've got three students to each PC!



Well tbf I went to london college of printing, the London Institute was shocking when I was there too...... no facilities, they were using our funding to pay for the decent facilities over at elephant and castle, and the foundations were having to use the shit over crowded facilities at back hill.

I have worked in both unis and colleges, there is a marked difference between the 2.


----------



## magneze (Jan 18, 2012)

iPads in schools. Still a shit idea. Get children even further away from the nuts and bolts of computers. Great idea.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 18, 2012)

magneze said:


> iPads in schools. Still a shit idea. Get children even further away from the nuts and bolts of computers. Great idea.


That's like saying that providing textbooks removes children further away from the nuts and bolts of typesetting and book-binding.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 18, 2012)

I don't want to deal with the nuts and bolts of computers, and I'm a bloody developer.


----------



## editor (Jan 18, 2012)

Crispy said:


> That's like saying that providing textbooks removes children further away from the nuts and bolts of typesetting and book-binding.


Fancy having a go at learning some coding and programming on an iPad?
Or running industry standard software for graphics?
Good luck with that.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 18, 2012)

editor said:


> Fancy having a go at learning some coding and programming on an iPad?



No, I'd use a general purpose computer. iPads are not general purpose computers.

Many schools already use projectors and "smart" whiteboards instead of blackboards. They are more expensive, but they allow the teacher to do more. Apple's alleged proposals are not for replacing computers, but for replacing text books. More expensive, but do more.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 18, 2012)

Fancy playing tennis or learning to cook a soufflé with an iPad? _Good luck trying to do that in Apple's overpriced closed censored walled garden._


----------



## mwgdrwg (Jan 18, 2012)

You already discussed/argued about this previously:

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threa...ipads-in-the-classrooms.280548/#post-10445150

Fucking huge argument here also (this is the one I was thinking of):

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threa...opinions-discussions-rants-etc.270226/page-19


----------



## Kanda (Jan 18, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Fancy playing tennis or learning to cook a soufflé with an iPad? _Good luck trying to do that in Apple's overpriced closed censored walled garden._


----------



## mwgdrwg (Jan 18, 2012)




----------



## chilango (Jan 18, 2012)

editor said:


> I said "_more open_" (as in they can shop around for vendors and not be forced into committing to a hardware monopoly).



The last thing I want as a teacher is my bosses "shopping around". That's how come so many schools have ended up with piles of out of date, over-priced and barely usable piles of junk.

What I do want is them to buy a nice, "works out of the box" up to date pile of tech that will actually add something extra. Whether you like it or not the iPad actually does that.


----------



## editor (Jan 18, 2012)

chilango said:


> What I do want is them to buy a nice, "works out of the box" up to date pile of tech that will actually add something extra. Whether you like it or not the iPad actually does that.


Something like this would be a far more practical all-round purchase IMO (unless the college is rich enough to give students laptops_ and_ nice iPads) http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/06/lenovos-rugged-thinkpad-x130e-targets-the-education-market-arr/


----------



## magneze (Jan 18, 2012)

Crispy said:


> That's like saying that providing textbooks removes children further away from the nuts and bolts of typesetting and book-binding.


Typesetting and bookbinding can only be used for a few things, like making books. Software can do so much more - reducing school children's view of computers to a tablet is cutting them off from so much.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 18, 2012)

magneze said:


> Typesetting and bookbinding can only be used for a few things, like making books. Software can do so much more - reducing school children's view of computers to a tablet is cutting them off from so much.



So we should get rid of text books because you can't code on them?


----------



## magneze (Jan 18, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> So we should get rid of text books because you can't code on them?


Moronic.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 18, 2012)

magneze said:


> Typesetting and bookbinding can only be used for a few things, like making books. Software can do so much more - reducing school children's view of computers to a tablet is cutting them off from so much.


Giving people iPads doesn't reduce their view of computers to iPads; they still have computers.

Also, for most people a computer is a magic box that has Facebook on it anyway. It's hardly as if typing a few essays in Word means you end up compiling your own kernel. Computers are tools first.


----------



## magneze (Jan 18, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Giving people iPads doesn't reduce their view of computers to iPads; they still have computers.
> 
> Also, for most people a computer is a magic box that has Facebook on it anyway. It's hardly as if typing a few essays in Word means you end up compiling your own kernel. Computers are tools first.


Sure, but few people will go much further than that if all they're exposed to at school is a tablet which could be a massive waste of unrecognised talent.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 18, 2012)

magneze said:


> Sure, but few people will go much further than that if all they're exposed to at school is a tablet which could be a massive waste of unrecognised talent.


Given that schools will still have computers and people will still use them, I don't see that this is an issue. Furthermore, students will also be gaining experience in an increasingly important new UI paradigm.


----------



## editor (Jan 18, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Given that schools will still have computers and people will still use them, I don't see that this is an issue. Furthermore, students will also be gaining experience in an increasingly important new UI paradigm.


But not as important as a laptop/desktop which the vast majority of the real world runs on. iPads are a nice extra, but in these cash strapped times, a fairly unjustifiable expense.


----------



## magneze (Jan 18, 2012)

I remain sceptical until the announcement. Replacing textbooks with iPads is a bad idea for so many reasons. Textbooks can be dropped, don't cause eyestrain, don't generally get stolen. The list goes on and on.

It's simply about Apple getting their product into consumers hands at a young age. They can dress it up all they like, but that's the size of it.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 18, 2012)

editor said:


> But not as important as a laptop/desktop which the vast majority of the real world runs on. iPads are a nice extra, but in these cash strapped times, a fairly unjustifiable expense.


There is nothing to suggest that schools are going to be somehow computer-free. And as has been pointed out, stuff that works is not an unjustifiable expense when compared to stuff that doesn't.


----------



## magneze (Jan 18, 2012)

Sorry, what doesn't work? Books?


----------



## Crispy (Jan 18, 2012)

Repeat after me: ipads are not going to replace computers, for teaching computers.


----------



## editor (Jan 18, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> And as has been pointed out, stuff that works is not an unjustifiable expense when compared to stuff that doesn't.


Computers don't work?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 18, 2012)

Take a look at chilango's posts.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jan 18, 2012)

I'd have thought e-readers would be a more sensible option for schools. They're less nickable/breakable, and still do a grand job of replacing text books. Based on the retail price of a kindle, I'd have thought a large procurement by an education authority by a non branded manufacturer would secure one per child at a cost of say.. £30 each or less.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 18, 2012)

This is all a bit silly given that none of us have any idea what is being launched anyway, and the whole tablets for schools thing has been done several times before, so I'm not going to go on about it all over again.


----------



## magneze (Jan 18, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Repeat after me: ipads are not going to replace computers, for teaching computers.


Programming in Computing lessons got replaced by Word, Excel & PowerPoint, so I wouldn't be so sure.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 18, 2012)

magneze said:


> Programming in Computing lessons got replaced by Word, Excel & PowerPoint, so I wouldn't be so sure.



This hould make you happy then: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16493929


----------



## magneze (Jan 18, 2012)

Crispy said:


> This hould make you happy then: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16493929


It did tbh.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 19, 2012)

That's some incredible growth.


----------



## editor (Jan 19, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> That's some incredible growth.


That'll be because they released a new model after 18 months. Now watch it go down again as Android continues to outsell iOS.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2012)

Im interested in the tech for the interactive ebooks, including the publishing tool. And I remember well from school many textbooks that were in bad condition or were desperately dull. Im not sure if Apple are the best people to do it but the educational sector could use some shaking up and disrupting, people have been making good money from old rope for far too long.


----------



## sim667 (Jan 19, 2012)

magneze said:


> I remain sceptical until the announcement. Replacing textbooks with iPads is a bad idea for so many reasons. Textbooks can be dropped, don't cause eyestrain, don't generally get stolen. The list goes on and on.



But they take up fuck loads of space, and become outdate very quickly.


----------



## magneze (Jan 19, 2012)

sim667 said:


> But they take up fuck loads of space, and become outdate very quickly.


LOL. Shakespeare, Chaucer, Secondary school level maths, physics and chemistry gets totally out of date.


----------



## chilango (Jan 19, 2012)

"Right class, turn to page 261. Or Page 248 if you have the old edition. Or if you've got the American edition I've got the missing pages photocopied for you. By the way the answer in the back is wrong. Ignore it."


----------



## editor (Jan 19, 2012)

sim667 said:


> But they take up fuck loads of space, and become outdate very quickly.


Last a lot longer than electronic devices though.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jan 19, 2012)

Also the cost of buying a class worth of ipads is a fair bit, even before you buy the apple textbooks!


----------



## magneze (Jan 19, 2012)

chilango said:


> "Right class, turn to page 261. Or Page 248 if you have the old edition. Or if you've got the American edition I've got the missing pages photocopied for you. By the way the answer in the back is wrong. Ignore it."


Textbooks must have gotten much shitter in the last 20-25 years.


----------



## editor (Jan 19, 2012)

chilango said:


> "Right class, turn to page 261. Or Page 248 if you have the old edition. Or if you've got the American edition I've got the missing pages photocopied for you. By the way the answer in the back is wrong. Ignore it."


"Right class. Are all your devices powered up? What's that? You have to reset it? It's run out of battery? The screen is broken?

OK, I want you to make some notes but not directly on the screen because that's not possible and you can't take the tablets back home with you anyway. Although flicking back and forth in a textbook and  folding  over any page corners is much easier than fiddling about with onscreen bookmarks, that's what you'll have to do, etc etc"


----------



## chilango (Jan 19, 2012)

magneze said:


> Textbooks must have gotten much shitter in the last 20-25 years.



I don't use textbooks. I had to cover a biology class the other week where the above quote is almost verbatim what I had to say (apart from the bit about the American edition). Maths teachers I know despair at the amount of errors in their (new) textbooks.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 19, 2012)

editor said:


> That'll be because they released a new model after 18 months. Now watch it go down again as Android continues to outsell iOS.



Watch it where exactly?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 19, 2012)

editor said:


> Last a lot longer than electronic devices though.



They really don't.


----------



## editor (Jan 19, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> They really don't.


They really do. Use many 20 year old computers?


----------



## chilango (Jan 19, 2012)

I've never seen a student ritually burn/rip-up their tablet at the end of a school year. Nor have I found any "lost" iPads tatty, broken and abandoned in a dark corner of the school.


----------



## chilango (Jan 19, 2012)

editor said:


> They really do. Use many 20 year old computers?





I've just had my school PC replaced. It was easily a decade old. probably more.


----------



## magneze (Jan 19, 2012)

chilango said:


> I've never seen a student ritually burn/rip-up their tablet at the end of a school year. Nor have I found any "lost" iPads tatty, broken and abandoned in a dark corner of the school.


Of course not, tablets are new. This won't happen until summer 2013 at the earliest.


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## chilango (Jan 19, 2012)

magneze said:


> Of course not, tablets are new. This won't happen until summer 2013 at the earliest.





Aye.

There'll be cock n balls drawn on 'em within minutes mind...


----------



## editor (Jan 19, 2012)

chilango said:


> I've never seen a student ritually burn/rip-up their tablet at the end of a school year. Nor have I found any "lost" iPads tatty, broken and abandoned in a dark corner of the school.


That's because they're dirt cheap compared to an iPad.


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## chilango (Jan 19, 2012)

editor said:


> That's because they're dirt cheap compared to an iPad.



You're saying kids are more respectful of expensive devices?


----------



## sim667 (Jan 19, 2012)

editor said:


> Last a lot longer than electronic devices though.



True, but I bet you apple will offer contracts for the lease of the equipment for certain amounts of time, so it gets update regularly.


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## editor (Jan 19, 2012)

chilango said:


> You're saying kids are more respectful of expensive devices?


I'd imagine iPads would get treated the same if they were 20 years old.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jan 19, 2012)

Why not e-readers? Cheap, portable, and not much more exciting and desireable than scientific calculators which have been around for donkeys years.


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## Kanda (Jan 19, 2012)

Just been playing with iBooks Author. Is pretty cool. Might consider using it for training materials.


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## maldwyn (Jan 19, 2012)

Looks like a marriage between pages and keynote - will be useful.

Fucking ridiculous you still can't access iBooks on a Mac!


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 19, 2012)

Kanda said:


> Just been playing with iBooks Author. Is pretty cool. Might consider using it for training materials.



I would have  loved something like this back when my textbook was published for schools...would've have been great to be able to update to keep it current...


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 19, 2012)

Video of iBook Author, very interesting stuff, looks pretty damn easy to use too. Amazing it's free really...


----------



## editor (Jan 19, 2012)

It's yet another closed system.



> iBooks Author paid content exclusive to Apple
> Following Apple’s iBooks Author announcement today, word started to circulate that content made with Apple’s app could only be sold in Apple’s iBookstore. Authors could freely distribute their work, but they couldn’t _sell_ it elsewhere.
> After digging through the licensing PDF, Leanna thinks she might have found the pesky paragraph in question, namely, section 2.B.(ii).
> 
> ...


----------



## magneze (Jan 19, 2012)

That's probably why they only have 8 books at launch.


----------



## chilango (Jan 19, 2012)

skyscraper101 said:


> Why not e-readers? Cheap, portable, and not much more exciting and desireable than scientific calculators which have been around for donkeys years.



The same reason why netbooks aren't as good.

What a tablet like the iPad offers that is "new" is that subjects such as Art, Drama, Music, PE get something suited to them, and the device is about much more than the creation and review of text/surfing the internet.


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## chilango (Jan 19, 2012)

No iBooks author on the iPad, which seems a shame.

The free textbook ( a biology one) is pretty good though hardly a "gamechanger".

I like the smoother integration of iTunes U with the iPad. There's some good stuff on there.


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## skyscraper101 (Jan 19, 2012)

chilango said:


> The same reason why netbooks aren't as good.
> 
> What a tablet like the iPad offers that is "new" is that subjects such as Art, Drama, Music, PE get something suited to them, and the device is about much more than the creation and review of text/surfing the internet.



Is there much added benefit of an iPad with those subjects? So much so that everyone needs to have one? I was thinking more along the lines of science, maths, history, geography and english. All subjects which require tons of textbooks throughout a students school career. An e-book would be able to replace all of those, and would probably last a lot longer than an iPad too.

How long will it be before it's all "Miss, my maths book is taking too long to load" "oh, what version iOS have you got" "You might need the iPad 6 for for that" "best get down to the Apple Store" etc etc. Not to mention... kids + expensive glass tech = thefts and beakages.

An e-reader, which needs no OS updating, is cheaper in the event of breakage or loss, and which replicates text books just fine seems like a more logical choice to me. It can work in harmony with existing tech and I'd wager they'd last longer.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 19, 2012)

editor said:


> It's yet another closed system.


No it isn't - I've been saying this elsewhere. The iBooks Author program just has a non-commercial licence (well, one which allows you to additionally distribute commercially via Apple) just like thousands of others of free apps. You can write books for iBooks using other software. I can't see what here is a closed system at all.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 19, 2012)

iTeach:


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## paolo (Jan 20, 2012)

chilango said:


> I don't use textbooks. I had to cover a biology class the other week where the above quote is almost verbatim what I had to say (apart from the bit about the American edition). Maths teachers I know despair at the amount of errors in their (new) textbooks.



You can prove anything with actual experience.


----------



## chilango (Jan 20, 2012)

skyscraper101 said:


> Is there much added benefit of an iPad with those subjects? So much so that everyone needs to have one? I was thinking more along the lines of science, maths, history, geography and english. All subjects which require tons of textbooks throughout a students school career. An e-book would be able to replace all of those, and would probably last a lot longer than an iPad too.
> 
> How long will it be before it's all "Miss, my maths book is taking too long to load" "oh, what version iOS have you got" "You might need the iPad 6 for for that" "best get down to the Apple Store" etc etc. Not to mention... kids + expensive glass tech = thefts and beakages.
> 
> An e-reader, which needs no OS updating, is cheaper in the event of breakage or loss, and which replicates text books just fine seems like a more logical choice to me. It can work in harmony with existing tech and I'd wager they'd last longer.



Thing is if we got ereaders the above subjects wouldn't use it.

Just as we wouldn't use the various other options being talked about in schools I've worked in (netbooks, smartboards,laptops etc.)

So many subjects don't rely upon textbooks and text based learning. What a tablet like the iPad offers is radically different from these. I aready have students who use their own - very effectively.

Of course, there are a LOT of problems with iPads in schools. There are a LOT of problems with all the other options and there are a LOT of problems with leaving things as they are. But, for me, the iPad in the classroom is not a theoretical discussion, it's one that has been had, and still is being had by my bosses. It is by far the best option that they are discussing.

And equally, I should stress that i don't want or expect the iPad to be a panacea, nor to replace good things that already work. Hell, I've taught refugees in a churchyard on a knackered backboard with 50 yr old textbooks. BUT in my actual teaching experience the iPad is a good thing and a thing that adds options and alternatives that none of the other IT initiatives that are actually being discussed in schools do.


----------



## chilango (Jan 20, 2012)

skyscraper101 said:


> Is there much added benefit of an iPad with those subjects? So much so that everyone needs to have one? I was thinking more along the lines of science, maths, history, geography and english. All subjects which require tons of textbooks throughout a students school career. An e-book would be able to replace all of those, and would probably last a lot longer than an iPad too.
> 
> How long will it be before it's all "Miss, my maths book is taking too long to load" "oh, what version iOS have you got" "You might need the iPad 6 for for that" "best get down to the Apple Store" etc etc. Not to mention... kids + expensive glass tech = thefts and beakages.
> 
> An e-reader, which needs no OS updating, is cheaper in the event of breakage or loss, and which replicates text books just fine seems like a more logical choice to me. It can work in harmony with existing tech and I'd wager they'd last longer.



Also worth mentioning that my partner who is a Maths teacher has tried out Maths textbooks on a Kindle and says that it doesn't work at all, diagrams etc. did not translate well. that would go for geography, science, history as well.

English, yes, an ereader would be great. But the English teachers i know would refuse to use one. They still insist on handwritten essays!


----------



## editor (Jan 20, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> No it isn't - I've been saying this elsewhere. The iBooks Author program just has a non-commercial licence (well, one which allows you to additionally distribute commercially via Apple) just like thousands of others of free apps. You can write books for iBooks using other software. I can't see what here is a closed system at all.


You can ONLY sell books produced with the software through iBooks and it has to be fucking "approved" by the puritanical twats at Apple.


> iBooks Author is a very capable program, but it's not for everybody. Your books work on iPads but not iPhones, and they won't work in the previous version of iBooks. There's no versioning or collaboration tools for keeping track of successive drafts, edits and others' input, so if you're working in an environment where lots of people are involved in book production iBooks Author probably isn't for you. And there's that licence agreement.
> 
> *The iBooks Author end user licence agreement says that if you're charging for your book you can only sell it through iBooks;* if you fall foul of Apple's approval process, you're not allowed to take your finished project, export it and sell it elsewhere.
> 
> ...


http://www.techradar.com/news/software/hands-on-ibooks-author-review-1056368?src=rss&attr=all


----------



## Crispy (Jan 20, 2012)

editor said:


> You can ONLY sell it through iBooks and it has to be fucking "approved" by the puritanical twats at Apple.



There is no restriction on what software to use to make books. The iBook store is already full of books made with non-apple software. Give it a short while and other layout apps will be able to write to the new format too.


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## skyscraper101 (Jan 20, 2012)

chilango said:


> Also worth mentioning that my partner who is a Maths teacher has tried out Maths textbooks on a Kindle and says that it doesn't work at all, diagrams etc. did not translate well. that would go for geography, science, history as well.
> 
> English, yes, an ereader would be great. But the English teachers i know would refuse to use one. They still insist on handwritten essays!



You sound like you know what you're talking about. I just worry that insisting kids have expensive ipads could be an expensive gamble. What happens to those who lose/damage or get them stolen? Do they have to fork out for another? Thats my main worry. Less of an issue with books or even ebooks. At college or uni level its a different thing, kids should be a bit older and more responsible so ipads make total sense.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 20, 2012)

editor said:


> You can ONLY sell books produced with the software through iBooks and it has to be fucking "approved" by the puritanical twats at Apple.
> 
> http://www.techradar.com/news/software/hands-on-ibooks-author-review-1056368?src=rss&attr=all


That is precisely what I said. It is a free publishing tool for use with iBooks, though you can use it for free books outside iBooks as well (not that that is much use without conversion tools, though it seems to be just EPUB3 apparently). You can use other software instead if you want.

Maybe they should make it _hard_ for people to publish on iBooks or something?


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Jan 20, 2012)

skyscraper101 said:


> Why not e-readers? Cheap, portable, and not much more exciting and desireable than scientific calculators which have been around for donkeys years.



Weirdly the style of books you'd have thought they are most suited for (big heavy reference books) they actually the worst at, it's much easy to flick to where you want to be in the paper copy. Ereaders are better for things you read from start to finish, like fiction.


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## skyscraper101 (Jan 20, 2012)

Given the likely cost of novels and such throughout a student's 5 year secondary school career, I'd have thought a basic e-reader would be more cost efficient, even if just used for English lit.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 20, 2012)

The negative reaction against this is very strange, nobody's forcing anyone to use this!


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 20, 2012)

skyscraper101 said:


> Given the likely cost of novels and such throughout a student's 5 year secondary school career, I'd have thought a basic e-reader would be more cost efficient, even if just used for English lit.


You'd be all right in English Lit, but trad e-readers like the kindle are really only designed for text. They are generally pretty crap for anything needing diagrams or where layout is important - let alone such things as video and interactive content. Apparently there has been a generally quite negative reaction with students and staff to them, I was reading the other day.


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## editor (Jan 20, 2012)

Interesting comment about how this "is about programming students to use the iPad and other Apple products right from the beginning of their education," and how it may drive a wedge between the haves and the have nots.

Unless Apple introduce a stripped down cheapo iPad, the current $500 asking price is simplys not affordable to many families or schools.


> In summary, yes, I love the basic concept of all Apple is doing for education. However, by making it all Apple centered, they are restricting America’s promise of a free and accessible education. The privileged will get Apple products and a better education, and those who can most benefit from a good education will be left out.
> http://www.imore.com/2012/01/20/teacher-educator-reactions-apples-ibooks-2-ibooks-author-itunes/


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## editor (Jan 20, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> You'd be all right in English Lit, but trad e-readers like the kindle are really only designed for text.


But the Kindle Fire can do everything education-based an iPad can do - for under half the price.


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## maldwyn (Jan 20, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> The negative reaction against this is very strange, nobody's forcing anyone to use this!


I think if Apple had announced they'd be giving every school kid a free iPad there would still be people having a go at them


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 20, 2012)

editor said:


> But the Kindle Fire can do everything education-based an iPad can do - for under half the price.


For textbooks I imagine yes (well, it's a bit smaller) though I've not used one. Presumably this is a competitor that Apple are seriously considering, and will be pushing not just books but more interactive apps as well as part of a whole experience.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 20, 2012)

As a disclaimer by the way I am currently writing an educational app for the iPad (not on my own, for a client).


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## paolo (Jan 20, 2012)

editor said:


> But the Kindle Fire can do everything education-based an iPad can do - for under half the price.



Good, more power to the schools.

 I take it then, that your objection isn't that something is a tablet, it's actually price?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 20, 2012)

maldwyn said:


> I think if Apple had announced they'd be giving every school kid a free iPad there would still be people having a go at them



Yeah very true. Texts go from $200 down to $15 and apparently thats the end of freedom as we know it...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 20, 2012)

paolo999 said:


> Good, more power to the schools.
> 
> I take it then, that your objection isn't that something is a tablet, it's actually price?



If it is he's shifted his argument significantly.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 21, 2012)

"Think Different!" OR "Yes! We're all individuals!"







Couldn't resist.


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## magneze (Jan 21, 2012)

Guy in the yellow shirt didn't get the required equipment list for Consumerism 101.


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## editor (Jan 21, 2012)

paolo999 said:


> I take it then, that your objection isn't that something is a tablet, it's actually price?


My objection is for such an expensive and limited device being forced onto schools, many of whom won't be able to afford it. So they'll go without. A cheaper, rugged laptop would be a far more sensible choice. A cheaper (as in a third of the price), equally capable tablet could have some benefits too, and be far more accessible to all families, rich and poor.


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## sunnysidedown (Jan 21, 2012)

editor said:


> My objection is for such an expensive and limited device being forced onto schools, many of whom won't be able to afford it. So they'll go without. *A cheaper, rugged laptop would be a far more sensible choice.*



chortle...


----------



## editor (Jan 21, 2012)

sunnysidedown said:


> chortle...


What's amusing you?


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jan 21, 2012)

And even if your kid does get it nicked or damaged, what's the likelyhood of it running at the same speed five years down the line. I know poeple with iPhone 3GS's who are complaining that their phones have significantly slowed up since iOS 5. And they're only two and a half years old.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 22, 2012)

Apparently ipad learning can give a 20 pt boost according to this year long study.



> In an attempt to assess the effect of iPad textbooks on student performance, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) performed a year-long pilot program using an iPad version of the company's Algebra 1 textbook for middle school students. The study, conducted at Amelia Earhart Middle School in Riverside, California, saw 78% students taking the course using the iPad textbook rank as "Proficient" or "Advanced" in the subject, compared to only 58% of students using the traditional print textbook.
> 
> _*The first assessment of the pilot— Riverside's district Algebra benchmark –took place during the second trimester of the 2010–2011 year. Students using HMH Fuse scored an average of 10 percentage points higher than their peers. The app's impact was even more pronounced after the California Standards Test in spring 2011, on which HMH Fuse students scored approximately 20 percent higher than their textbook-using peers.*_​​Educators noted increased motivation on the part of students using the iPad app, as well as the personal level of interactivity, as factors contributing to student success. Students also found the iPad experience more natural and put them more in charge of their own learning, factors that increased student interest and engagement.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 22, 2012)

skyscraper101 said:


> And even if your kid does get it nicked or damaged, what's the likelyhood of it running at the same speed five years down the line. I know poeple with iPhone 3GS's who are complaining that their phones have significantly slowed up since iOS 5. And they're only two and a half years old.



My 3GS ran fine on iOS5, everything is faster on the 4S I now own with one glaring exception: iBooks. No change there in how the Beatles iBook runs...


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jan 22, 2012)

paolo999 said:


> Good, more power to the schools.
> 
> I take it then, that your objection isn't that something is a tablet, it's actually price?



My objection is the lock in. I can see the future in new well thought out textbooks in new mediums, but it seems wrong that it should only run on premium hardware.

Allowing companies to make tablets for education makes sense as well. There's no way any consumer tablet could survive two years in the classroom.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jan 22, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> My 3GS ran fine on iOS5, everything is faster on the 4S I now own with one glaring exception: iBooks. No change there in how the Beatles iBook runs...



What about battery life? Can an ipad go a whole day with constant use without needing charging? Will it do so in 3 years time? Or will every classroom, science lab, and PE sports hall now require 20 odd power connections?


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Apparently ipad learning can give a 20 pt boost according to this year long study.


Oh yes. There's a really unbiased source and a really scientific study - conducted by the people with a massive vested interest in shifting their product.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 22, 2012)

Forced? Get a grip.


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Forced? Get a grip.


Would you prefer, "Encouraged, but then at an advantage if they can't afford one"?



> The problem is that the cheapest iPad is still $500. What high school student is going to buy that? Basically none — their parents will have to. And that’s fine for some students, but not all. Not even a high percent, I’d imagine. In the inner-cities — again, where education is even more of an issue — it’s probably even less likely of a purchase.
> 
> As Josh Topolsky points out, Apple does work with school districts to lease iPads on a four-year schedule, presumably at a nice discount. But that means the school owns the iPads and temporarily gives them out to students. That goes against Apple’s stated mission that students should now buy (or get via redemption code) all iBooks textbooks and keep them forever, keeping their notes, highlights, etc.
> 
> ...


----------



## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

I don't see a scenario where poor parents are going to be forced to buy their kids an iPad for school.

What I do see is a shift in what schools choose to spend their IT budget on.

As things stand a large amount of money is wasted on IT investments that frankly don't work very well. Smartboards etc.

There is a large amount of pressure from above for schools to be more effective in their use of IT. Given that schools are already planning to spend a lot of money on _something_, the choice is what is the best way of spending that money?

It certainly isn't ereaders or netbooks.


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

chilango said:


> It certainly isn't ereaders or netbooks.


Or expensive iPads.


----------



## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> Or expensive iPads.



Because they're iPads or because they're expensive?


----------



## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

Right now my school is going through the process of making these decisions.

Buying nothing is not an option. Leaving things as they are is not being considered. Android tablets have been considered and dismissed afaik.

The (real, happening in the coming months) choices are:


iPads
Netbooks
New PCs in the computer lab and an extra computer lab.
_Only one_ of these choices will add anything to my teaching._ Only one_ of these choices will actually get used in my classroom (and its the same for most of my colleagues).

It is the "expensive iPads".

I've seen way too many mistakes being made over years in terms of IT investment. Way too many smartboards gather dust unused, way too many manhours wasted forcing inappropriate tech into my planning to take this lightly.

You know, I'd love it if it wasn't this way. I'm very wary of Apple and it's motives here. But they are providing what I need here and now.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 22, 2012)

skyscraper101 said:


> What about battery life? Can an ipad go a whole day with constant use without needing charging? Will it do so in 3 years time? Or will every classroom, science lab, and PE sports hall now require 20 odd power connections?



That's probably one of the best questions asked about this. Battery life is 10 hours on the iPad (and will only get better over the years), how many uni or school days are 10 hours long in terms of lessons or lectures? Put another way, plenty of uni students use laptops in lectures how do they cope with less battery life?


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

chilango said:


> Because they're iPads or because they're expensive?


Because they're:
(a) very expensive and
(b) not as versatile as cheaper solutions (no memory card slots/no removable battery/no USB slots etc)
(c) don't have a proper keyboard
(d) form part of a proprietary closed hardware/software system
(e) easy to break



> When Paul Steinhaus, chief information officer at Chatham University, met with his colleagues last summer to discus getting iPads for incoming students, they knew the move could raise the profile of the small institution in Pittsburgh. Across the country, institutions had grabbed headlines for adopting Apple's tablet computing device.
> 
> But Mr. Steinhaus and other administrators soon realized that the iPad, with the slow finger-typing it requires, actually makes written course work more difficult, and that the devices wouldn't run all of the university's applications. "I'd hate to charge students and have them only be able to use it for e-mail and Facebook," says Mr. Steinhaus. Chatham charges a $700 annual technology fee, which now pays for standard laptops.
> 
> ...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 22, 2012)

chilango said:


> Right now my school is going through the process of making these decisions.
> 
> Buying nothing is not an option. Leaving things as they are is not being considered. Android tablets have been considered and dismissed afaik.
> 
> ...



I wonder how many people are going to have the same view as you in the education system...


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

chilango said:


> _Only one_ of these choices will add anything to my teaching._ Only one_ of these choices will actually get used in my classroom (and its the same for most of my colleagues).


Why on earth wouldn't you use an education-targeted laptop like the Lenovo?

After all, most of the world seems to get by just fine on such machines.


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## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> That's probably one of the best questions asked about this. Battery life is 10 hours on the iPad (and will only get better over the years), how many uni or school days are 10 hours long in terms of lessons or lectures? Put another way, plenty of uni students use laptops in lectures how do they cope with less battery life?



I get about 10 hours out of an iPad.

Worth remembering though that kids won't be using them all day, every day.


----------



## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> Why on earth wouldn't you use an education-targeted laptop like the Lenovo?
> 
> After all, most of the world seems to get by just fine on such machines.



Laptops are almost useless in a classroom setting.

Well, i exagerate a little, but wouldn't be much (extra) use in Art, PE, Music, Drama and with the younger students.


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## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> I wonder how many people are going to have the same view as you in the education system...



I wonder too.

There a lot of teachers who are very resistant to using IT at all.


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

chilango said:


> Laptops are almost useless in a classroom setting.
> 
> Well, i exagerate a little, but wouldn't be much (extra) use in Art, PE, Music, Drama and with the younger students.


I've really no idea where you're going with this rather odd argument, but I'm pretty sure it'll end up with you once again concluding that the iPad does everything better for everyone all the time.


----------



## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> Because they're:
> (a) very expensive and
> (b) not as versatile as cheaper solutions (no memory card slots/no removable battery/no USB slots etc)
> (c) don't have a proper keyboard
> ...



a) Yes they are.

b) More versatile than laptops/netbooks/PCs/ereaders. Many schools discourage or even ban USB keys etc. now.

c) Don't want/need a keyboard for majority of work done is class. It's not about essay writing.

d) Yes, I agree. But however management teams see that as an _advantage_.

e) So are the vast majority of things kids use in school.


----------



## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> I've really no idea where you're going with this rather odd argument, but I'm pretty sure it'll end up with you once again concluding that the iPad does everything better for everyone all the time.



Nope.

I am teacher who will have to use what the school invests in.

You won't.

I'm telling you from experience in a classroom setting what works best for me and my students.

You don't like the answer.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

Having given it much though, I think what Id like to see happen is roughly as follows:

Apple get in there and help various corners of the educational system to harness this sort of technology effectively. Apple devices have the right features & spec and are on the way to having the content. Certain schools, teachers, parents & pupils will embrace this stuff early and lessons will be learnt, old ways disrupted.

Then, should this tech be proven capable of adding quality to the educational system, others should get their shit together and offer alternatives that are cheaper, and/or initiatives should be taken so that no child is left behind due to tech poverty. I don't want Apple to have a long term monopoly on this stuff but that doesn't mean they can't be used as a battering ram to break down some barriers at this stage, then screw them out of their monopoly position later once they've become the entrenched barrier.

Editors complaints about cost seem slightly disconnected from the IT spend waste and failed pet projects in this sector over many decades. No end of corporations and other companies have made money selling stuff that was quickly obsolete to schools, and its not like most kids could afford BBC Micro computers back in the day. The stakes are higher now, but given the market-based corporate hole we find ourselves in right now I don't think I'll be looking for perfect solutions right now, I just want schools etc to do better for their pupils and productive use of IT has been very hit & miss over the decades and people deserve better.


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

chilango said:


> a) Yes they are.
> 
> b) More versatile than laptops/netbooks/PCs/ereaders.


Oh come on, get a grip! Laptops come with USB slots, printer ports, SD card readers and a proper full-size keyboard and that makes them far more versatile than an iPad.

You fancy typing a 2,000 word essay on an iPad? Good luck with that. Want to load up pics from your digital camera on to your iPad? Have fun! Want to run industry standard, cross-platform programs? Oops. Want to learn coding? Want proper multi-tasking? Etc etc.

The iPad is a great device, but even Apple's biggest fans would probably have trouble keeping a straight face if they're insisting that it's more versatile than a laptop.


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

chilango said:


> I'm telling you from experience in a classroom setting what works best for me and my students.
> 
> You don't like the answer.


No, you're only describing what works best for *you*.

I taught in a university for two years, btw.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

Printer ports? lol.


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

elbows said:


> Printer ports? lol.


Yes. Those. Can come in handy sometimes when the kid wants to print something at home.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> The iPad is a great device, but even Apple's biggest fans would probably have trouble keeping a straight face if they're insisting that it's more versatile than a laptop.



Yeah thats not the best word for it. Versatile and a useful form factor within certain specific realms. For me the ideal educational machine would probably be the convertible type where you can use it as a tablet or attach it to a docking station/keyboard things. Apple doesn't do this as well as some others.

When trying to imagine the ultimate machine for students I think being more rugged and readable in sunlight, along with decent handwriting recognition & stylus would probably feature on the ultimate wish list.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> Yes. Those. Can come in handy sometimes when the kid wants to print something at home.



I was only laughing because dedicated printer ports have been gone for quite some time now. The iPad could certainly use a wider range of USB capabilities, although medium term it seems likely that wireless printing will become rather normal.

And whilst I can certainly appreciate that requiring a separate dongle is less than ideal, your continued clinging to suggestions that its in some way tricky to get digital photos onto an iPad speaks volumes. Aren't you bored of the Apple hate sponsored rut you've been lurking in for years now?


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

What we need is a shitty UK-made cheap tablet that we can give to every child. Maybe someone can have a word with Lord Sugar and see if he's up for producing a load of shitty Amstabs.


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

elbows said:


> And whilst I can certainly appreciate that requiring a separate dongle is less than ideal, your continued clinging to suggestions that its in some way tricky to get digital photos onto an iPad speaks volumes.


It's certainly tricker than with a laptop where it's a case of: take the card out of camera, put in slot. Done.

To do the same on an iPad you've got to spend even more dosh on a dongle (that'll be a laughable extra £25 thanksverymuch) and then hope you don't lose/forget/break it.

Oh, and there's nothing 'hateful' about simply stating facts.


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

Top rated review on Apple's site for the aforementioned dongle:


> The recent upgrade to iOS 4.2 renders the camera connection kit useless. The maximum USB output has been reduced from 100ma to 20ma which isn't enough to drive this device.
> 
> I invested £500 on an iPad specifically to be able to review photos with clients at the end of a shoot. The fact that Apple has suddenly and without any warning stopped supporting the camera connection kit is appalling and leaves me with suddenly needing to find a grand or two for a laptop.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

The selection of facts is where the action is.


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

elbows said:


> The selection of facts is where the action is.


That's the _top rated_ review at the top of the page on Apple's own site for the item that you were claiming made it as easy to transfer images off a camera as a laptop. There's load more complaints if you want to read on. Those are the facts.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

Why would your selection of facts mean anything to someone who owns said adaptor and is very happy with it?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 22, 2012)

chilango said:


> I get about 10 hours out of an iPad.
> 
> Worth remembering though that kids won't be using them all day, every day.



Indeed. How long is the average school day now, 6 hours or so?


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

elbows said:


> Why would your selection of facts mean anything to someone who owns said adaptor and is very happy with it?


I'd rather go on the opinion of the thousands of users on Apple's own site myself.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> I'd rather go on the opinion of the thousands of users on Apple's own site myself.



By all means take into the account the fact that some users have no joy getting this stuff to work with their kit.

But also take into account the fact that people with problems are always more visible than those without, and the fact that Apple still sell this kit.


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

elbows said:


> By all means take into the account the fact that some users have no joy getting this stuff to work with their kit.
> 
> But also take into account the fact that people with problems are always more visible than those without, and the fact that Apple still sell this kit.


The thing can only manage three stars overall - and it's just a USB reader! 

Still if you want to carry insisting that fucking about with a easy-to-lose dongle that has a good chance of not working with your camera  is somehow as easy as using a laptop, you go right ahead!


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

Here's how 'easy' it is:



> Having purchased the Apple Connectivity Connection Kit from the Apple store to enable the viewing of photos on the iPad via a Compact Flash card, the product functioned fine before Marcus updated to the iOS 4.2 as recommended by Apple.  This immediately rendered the connection kit unusable.
> 
> “I purchased the iPad predominantly for the purpose of reviewing photographs with clients away from a power supply or computer.  The iPad is a fantastic device which is generally very easy to use, however I am now left with a product that is essentially useless as far as my needs are concerned,” Marcus told TechEye.
> 
> ...


----------



## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> Oh come on, get a grip! Laptops come with USB slots, printer ports, SD card readers and a proper full-size keyboard and that makes them far more versatile than an iPad.
> 
> You fancy typing a 2,000 word essay on an iPad? Good luck with that. Want to load up pics from your digital camera on to your iPad? Have fun! Want to run industry standard, cross-platform programs? Oops. Want to learn coding? Want proper multi-tasking? Etc etc.
> 
> The iPad is a great device, but even Apple's biggest fans would probably have trouble keeping a straight face if they're insisting that it's more versatile than a laptop.



Most of my students (all of them I suspect) have laptops already, those that don't can use the schools. Do they use them in class.  Nope. Unless you count "googling" or listening to iTunes. It's possible to use them productively of course, but not something they choose to do, they do however use iPhones, iPods and iPads. The easier (for them) UI, the replacement of the keyboard with a touchscreen and the ability to layer and switch between apps seamlessly means they use this stuff without a second's thought. Drawing, sketching, note taking, research, filming, photographing, all at once on one device. They already do this. Whether we like it or not.

If they have to write 2000 word essay they do it at home. What teacher spends class time like that?

And digital photos to an iPad? Piece of piss! I do it in moments every day. Yes straight from an SD slot would be nice. It'd be nice if our school PCs or laptops had SD slots too!

I know the iPad is far from perfect. But for what we actually do (or more pertinently would like to do) in a classroom the iPad is better. Do you not think I've been using laptops, PCs etc for the last decade or so in the classroom?

Students are still going to have access to these when necessary...but for in the hands, in class bit of IT the iPad has WAY more uses in far more subjects for far more tasks than laptops, PCs or - god forgive- netbooks.


----------



## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> It's certainly tricker than with a laptop where it's a case of: take the card out of camera, put in slot. Done.
> 
> To do the same on an iPad you've got to spend even more dosh on a dongle (that'll be a laughable extra £25 thanksverymuch) and then hope you don't lose/forget/break it.
> 
> Oh, and there's nothing 'hateful' about simply stating facts.



I do it without a dongle. Dropbox is your friend.

You assume school computers have SD slots. Ours don't. Also (regrettably) most of the digital hoots my kids use these days are taken on their phones anyway.


----------



## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Indeed. How long is the average school day now, 6 hours or so?



Yeah


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

chilango said:


> Drawing, sketching, note taking, research, filming, photographing, all at once on one device. They already do this. Whether we like it or not.


The iPad really isn't very good for drawing or taking pictures.

In fact, if you're hell-bent on arguing for tablets, the Asus Transformer is a far more versatile machine overall - it has USB ports, a better camera, better battery life, more powerful CPU etc etc.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> The thing can only manage three stars overall - and it's just a USB reader!
> 
> Still if you want to carry insisting that fucking about with a easy-to-lose dongle that has a good chance of not working with your camera is somehow as easy as using a laptop, you go right ahead!



If you leave the dongle on the end of your camera cable then its not easy to lose. Doing this really involves negligible additional fucking about compared to plugging a camera into a laptop. Sure there is a problem with it not working with certain cameras, but I don't think Id go quite as far as to say the dongle has a good chance of not working with your camera. Personally I prefer plugging the memory stick in instead although I understand this may qualify as too much fucking about for you.

In any case I did describe the use of a dongle as less than ideal, and my point was really that you like to talk as if this stuff simply can't be don't on an iPad, probably because you have relatively few other blunt objects with which to bash the iPad in tedious fashion at every twist and turn. Never mind, the world moves on in complete disregard of the sour taste Apple give you. Id say get over it but theres never been any sign of that so I only bother to engage with you over this bullshit sporadically, its clearly a waste of time.


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## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

chilango said:


> I do it without a dongle. Dropbox is your friend.


Right. So kids would all have to sign up to Dropbox accounts too and have wi-fi in the classrooms just to transfer a photo? Assuming they don't forget their password etc etc.


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## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

The ASUS may well be better. The school isn't even looking at it however.

the iPad is great for the kind of drawing the kids would use it for. The camera is crap, but fine for what they need 99% of the time.


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## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

elbows said:


> If you leave the dongle on the end of your camera cable then its not easy to lose.


Meanwhile, in the real world, people lose/forget/break cables and dongles all the time. How can you possibly, seriously, argue that having to bring along extra leads and dongles makes things_ easier?_


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

Wifi in the classroom would certainly be a sensible part of any joined up IT & tablet in education programme.

You really have no vision for this stuff, everything a chore, everything negative for very obvious reasons. Sad, and every bit as much a disservice to the kids as anything Apple will do with their control freakery.


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

chilango said:


> the iPad is great for the kind of drawing the kids would use it for. The camera is crap, but fine for what they need 99% of the time.


What kind of drawing Is this then? Big smudgy fingers paintings?


----------



## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> Right. So kids would all have to sign up to Dropbox accounts too and have wi-fi in the classrooms just to transfer a photo? Assuming they don't forget their password etc etc.



Yes, or something similar.
Absofuckinglutely.
That's the idea.
It's what we already do.
.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> Meanwhile, in the real world, people lose/forget/break cables and dongles all the time. How can you possibly, seriously, argue that having to bring along extra leads and dongles makes things_ easier?_



I didnt say that. But since your preferred method of connectivity appears to involve a cable anyway, I was just pointing out that leaving a dongle on the end of it doesn't make a stunning difference to everyday life.


----------



## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> What kind of drawing Is this then? Big smudgy fingers paintings?



Seriously?


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

elbows said:


> You really have no vision for this stuff, everything a chore, everything negative for very obvious reasons. Sad, and every bit as much a disservice to the kids as anything Apple will do with their control freakery.


Listen to you: you're coming up with endless excuses and complicated workarounds just because you're so obsessed with one brand.

Your only vision is one product. At any cost.


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## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

chilango said:


> Seriously?


Although a big name artist or two may be able to create passable stuff on an iPad (on account of their great talent), it's really not a particularly great drawing device because there's so little fine control.

Stylus interface tablets are much better, but even they are frustrating to use.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> Listen to you: you're coming up with endless excuses and complicated workarounds just because you're so obsessed with one brand.
> 
> Your only vision is one product. At any cost.



Maybe you should read some of the other posts I made on this thread in the last hour or so, and you'll see that I laid out a vision that went far beyond one brand.

My appreciation of Apple products pails into insignificance compared to my memories of how shit the IT and textbooks were at school when I was a kid. When I got the iPad many of my thoughts were directed towards how much more this device would have meant to me if it had arrived when I was 12 rather than in my 30's.

My ideal vision involves every child being provided with suitable IT from an early age, paid for by the taxpayer. This involves tablets and many other things. I don't care too much who makes them, although in an ideal world I would favour a not-for-profit entity that provides a diverse range of jobs in the countries it supplies kit to. But the most important factors are that the device be fit for purpose, and that it be made available to people with no regard for their personal financial situation, that of their parents etc. And that there be abundant content. And its for this latter reason that I have to back Apple at this present phase of the game, for in so many areas they are the only ones putting heavy weights behind a disruptive movement to get quality content of many varieties onto these devices.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

elbows said:


> And that there be abundant content. And its for this latter reason that I have to back Apple at this present phase of the game, for in so many areas they are the only ones putting heavy weights behind a disruptive movement to get quality content of many varieties onto these devices.



Furthermore it is the issue of content that is the main potential downside with Apple leading the way on this front. The price of the kit and little faults that can be picked over specific areas of spec are not the real problem here, but rather the prospect of much of the rich educational content being available only on Apples platform. But as per my earlier post, I am willing to take the risk in order to overcome a more significant barrier. Let Apple kick the content providers into gear, get them behind the new devices, content delivery mechanisms, the idea of updating content etc. Then later, once the Apple-based versions of content have evolved, blow the doors off the monopolistic aspects. In the meantime industries change, education moves on and alternatives to Apple get a chance to catch up and get with the program.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> Right. So kids would all have to sign up to Dropbox accounts too and have wi-fi in the classrooms just to transfer a photo? Assuming they don't forget their password etc etc.



Better than using a dongle which can be lost (password recovery is a cinch, a master sheet of p/w could easily be kept by a teacher). When I was talking to my younger brother recently about school work and moving files he said he really didn't like usb dongles and none of his mates did either (fiddly, easy to lose/forget, one more thing to have to carry). I explained what Dropbox was and his eyes lit up and immediately he started talking about how he could have access to his school work on different machines at school and at home too. He's 12. Technology when done well can boost attitude toward education which in turn boosts attainment.

The thing that missing from this is the fact that young people today are far more immersed in tech than we were growing up, they have phones, games consoles, computers and increasingly tablets at home. They come to school and it's paper and pens...there's a disconnect in their world...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 22, 2012)

chilango said:


> Yeah



Right so well within the battery life of an iPad then. I assume you have these things called powerpoints in classrooms too?


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Better than using a dongle which can be lost (password recovery is a cinch, a master sheet of p/w could easily be kept by a teacher).


If you give kids free and open access to a _file sharing_ facility like Dropbox, can you not see any possible problems arising?


----------



## chilango (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> If you give kids free and open access to a _file sharing_ facility like Dropbox, can you not see any possible problems arising?



I imagine they'd use the school's VLE instead, but they can use Dropbox at the moment.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

Networks have always had value within educational institutions, and the invisible ease of the cloud era may finally get more of this raw potential unlocked effectively for younger pupils (& eventually & crucially the people who teach them).


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 22, 2012)

Is iBook Author really as evil as Apple's detractors make out?



> Is it too obvious to point out that Apple’s terms are optional? Nobody is forced to accept them. Is Microsoft greedy and evil for charging $120 for Microsoft Office? If I don’t like the price, I don’t have to use it.
> Apple’s iBooks Author is just an offer. Take it or leave it. Nobody is being coerced.
> 
> On the contrary, Apple’s terms aggressively champion the cause of free books. There are several powerful incentives for authors to give books away free. Who wrote this policy, Richard Stallman? Apple’s authoring tool is free, and if you don’t charge for the book, you can distribute it anyway you like. Wow!
> ...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 22, 2012)

elbows said:


> Networks have always had value within educational institutions, and the invisible ease of the cloud era may finally get more of this raw potential unlocked effectively for younger pupils (& eventually & crucially the people who teach them).



Yup, it's not exactly rocket science to see that either...


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yup, it's not exactly rocket science to see that either...



It doesn't take long at all to come up with all manner of things in this space does it?

For example one issue with devices in the classroom is that kids may be messing around with stuff unrelated to the lesson.

To get round this issue and try as hard as possible to make the downsides of IT invisible whilst trying to teach or learn, Id start off with uniformity of devices. Forget having a wide range of different kit in the hands of kids within a class, get the state or an institution to dish the tablets out. Have it cloud-based so there are no issues with previous data being tied to specific hardware. Outside of class hours the device is unlocked and can be used for whatever. But when in a specific class, the tablet is locked down to only provide the content & tools necessary for that class. Uniformity of hardware offers other opportunities such as building keyboards & docking stations into desks.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> The iPad really isn't very good for drawing or taking pictures.
> 
> In fact, if you're hell-bent on arguing for tablets, the Asus Transformer is a far more versatile machine overall - it has USB ports, a better camera, better battery life, more powerful CPU etc etc.



Thats why Apple are fighting on the content front.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 22, 2012)

elbows said:


> It doesn't take long at all to come up with all manner of things in this space does it?
> 
> For example one issue with devices in the classroom is that kids may be messing around with stuff unrelated to the lesson.
> 
> To get round this issue and try as hard as possible to make the downsides of IT invisible whilst trying to teach or learn, Id start off with uniformity of devices. Forget having a wide range of different kit in the hands of kids within a class, get the state or an institution to dish the tablets out. Have it cloud-based so there are no issues with previous data being tied to specific hardware. Outside of class hours the device is unlocked and can be used for whatever. But when in a specific class, the tablet is locked down to only provide the content & tools necessary for that class. Uniformity of hardware offers other opportunities such as building keyboards & docking stations into desks.



Yup breathtakingly easy to come up with all manner of workable real world solutions...


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2012)

editor said:


> Want to learn coding? Want proper multi-tasking?



Up till now I've been talking about education in general, rather than learning IT or programming etc, but since this aspect of education in the UK has been in the news recently, I had one thought about this.

I think that if all kids were given the same hardware as a right, then the incentive for some kids to learn to program for this platform would be quite strong. Apple is far from the ideal choice in this regard, Im talking more broadly in line with the other stuff Ive been posting.


----------



## editor (Jan 23, 2012)

This blind faith that shiny iPads = better results is nowhere near universally accepted.


> Since 2005, scores in reading and math have stagnated in Kyrene, even as statewide scores have risen.
> To be sure, test scores can go up or down for many reasons. But to many education experts, something is not adding up — here and across the country. In a nutshell: schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning.
> 
> This conundrum calls into question one of the most significant contemporary educational movements. Advocates for giving schools a major technological upgrade — which include powerful educators, Silicon Valley titans and White House appointees — say digital devices let students learn at their own pace, teach skills needed in a modern economy and hold the attention of a generation weaned on gadgets.
> ...


And the financial argument on text books looks wobbly too:


> The approach on release also doesn't compete well on price and flexibility. Apple touted a $14.99 price tag on high-school textbooks, but given that the textbooks would move with students' iTunes Store accounts, each time a new class needs the textbook, the purchase has to occur again.
> 
> A printed textbook might last two or more years and be used by several students, which obviates some of its high cost. For college students, a $15 textbook locked to their account makes vastly more sense, but $200 to $500 college print textbooks marked down to $15 weren't being discussed on Thursday.
> 
> http://www.macworld.co.uk/apple-education/news/?newsid=3331792


----------



## sim667 (Jan 23, 2012)

I dont actually know what they anounced in the end....

*goes off to look.


----------



## sim667 (Jan 23, 2012)

Nothing really that exciting, i use itunesU anyway, I dont need textbooks and we dont teach from textbooks....

I wonder if i could use ibooks author to make photo books for download?


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## pesh (Jan 23, 2012)

editor said:


> If you give kids free and open access to a _file sharing_ facility like Dropbox, can you not see any possible problems arising?



pretty sure it was dropbox themselves that gave them the open access to a file sharing facility, not the school. the schools just providing internet access isn't it? which they could then use to get onto megafiledownloadstream or whatever and go mental.

of course with an iPad they then won't be able to do anything useful with any of those sites as they don't let you download and use movies or music without syncing it to the relevant app.

so sounds like the perfect anti piracy tool for school use really.


----------



## editor (Jan 23, 2012)

pesh said:


> pretty sure it was dropbox themselves that gave them the open access to a file sharing facility, not the school. the schools just providing internet access isn't it?


Schools run firewalls. Opening up that firewall to allow Dropbox access could open up all sorts of possibilities.


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## sim667 (Jan 23, 2012)

It'd certainly be better than what we've got currently, which is a site blocker..... we dont have an access list it decides what to block depending on the content of the page...

but it means stuff like blogspot is permanently blocked, even though our students are being asked to submit folios to unis on blogspot 

Never use bloxx btw..... worst blocker evah!


----------



## Crispy (Jan 23, 2012)

editor said:


> Schools run firewalls. Opening up that firewall to allow Dropbox access could open up all sorts of possibilities.


You don't need to configure a firewall for Dropbox - it works on http and https.


----------



## editor (Jan 23, 2012)

Crispy said:


> You don't need to configure a firewall for Dropbox - it works on http and https.


But schools can run firewalls that block http access across certain domains/non allowed IP ranges.


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## Crispy (Jan 23, 2012)

editor said:


> But schools can run firewalls that block http access across certain domains/non allowed IP ranges.


Sure, easy enough to block or allow dropbox as you like. I'm not sure, then, what you were hinting at when you talked about 'possibilities' - do you mean pupils abusing the system?


----------



## pesh (Jan 23, 2012)

editor said:


> Schools run firewalls. Opening up that firewall to allow Dropbox access could open up all sorts of possibilities.



to be honest i never considered schools might be trying to block dropbox. i've always thought it was more of a backup and cloud type system.

while i can imagine they would try to block torrent traffic are schools actually tying to block personal backup and cloud type things?

i'd have thought schools would be all for it. stick your homework in my dropbox etc.


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## chilango (Jan 23, 2012)

We don't block Dropbox and of all the things the kids do that cause hassle to the IT guy and feck up the network Dropbox (or similar) has never ever been an issue...(yet )


----------



## chilango (Jan 23, 2012)

sim667 said:


> Nothing really that exciting, i use itunesU anyway, I dont need textbooks and we dont teach from textbooks....
> 
> I wonder if i could use ibooks author to make photo books for download?



Looks like it.


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## pesh (Jan 23, 2012)

i would have thought as far as schools go the problem is more to do with Little Tommy bringing in his 2Tb drive full of movies than someone trying to download a Skrillex MP3 from a private backup folder.

if they want to do wholesale piracy and they already have expensive toys like iPads and laptops chances are they will have internet at home thats at least as fast as a busy school network.


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## Ranbay (Jan 23, 2012)

not read back but when is the Ipad 3 due out?

my Ipad is on it's last legs or something


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## chilango (Jan 23, 2012)

pesh said:


> i would have thought as far as schools go the problem is more to do with Little Tommy bringing in his 2Tb drive full of movies than someone trying to download a Skrillex MP3 from a private backup folder.
> 
> if they want to do wholesale piracy and they already have expensive toys like iPads and laptops chances are they will have internet at home thats at least as fast as a busy school network.



The biggest problems I've heard of in my school are in rough order of occurence

a) Kids losing their USB keys with their work on.

b) Printers being knackered by too much printing

c) Kids trying to plug their own laptops into the wired network (to print or get online) rather than using the wifi. This is the one that has caused the most issues to the network.

Piracy/Downloading whilst identified as an "offence" have never been big issues.


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## pesh (Jan 23, 2012)

yeah, i ment problem for the beloved film and music industries...

as far as schools go dropbox would sort out your first problem and to some extent your second problem.

as soon as groups like the MPAA or RIAA starts trying to shake schools down for millions of pounds in lost royalties i think what little goodwill they have left will evaporate.


----------



## sim667 (Jan 23, 2012)

chilango said:


> Looks like it.



Hmm I wonder if I can make books worth 99p or something.

On the firewall front, one thing worth bearing in mind is some schools colleges are connected to council firewalls. That was certainly the case in Sutton. Getting ports etc opened on those takes a lot longer


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 23, 2012)

B0B2oo9 said:


> not read back but when is the Ipad 3 due out?
> 
> my Ipad is on it's last legs or something



By the end of march and it'll be better than last year.


----------



## Ranbay (Jan 23, 2012)

Cool, will hang fire for one then


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 23, 2012)

Oh yeah if you're after an iPad I'd deffo wait!


----------



## editor (Jan 23, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> That's some incredible growth.


Shame that Neilsen made a total hash of interpreting their own figures and arrived at the wrong conclusion:


> *Android stays ahead of iPhone surge in US (despite what Nielsen thinks)*
> Though the iPhone did incredibly well in the past three months in the US – getting nearly half of sales – Nielsen's claim that it's 'catching up' with Android isn't quite right...
> 
> That means, roughly, that for every 10 smartphones sold in those three months, four were iPhones and five were running Android. (Nielsen gives figures: 61.6% v 25.1% for Android/iOS in October, 48.7% v 38.8% in November, 46.9% v 44.5% in December.) At no point have iPhones been outselling the totality of Android phones – though in December they came within 2.4%, so nearly neck and neck.
> ...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 23, 2012)

Yeah real shame, millions are in tears over this....


----------



## editor (Jan 23, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yeah real shame, millions are in tears over this....


So it was interesting enough for you post up about it earlier, but now the figures have be shown to not add up the way you'd like them to, it's suddenly OK to dismiss it all?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 23, 2012)

Interesting 





editor said:


> So it was interesting enough for you post up about it earlier, but now the figures have be shown to not add up the way you'd like them to, it's suddenly OK to dismiss it all?



Well you know what they say, don't shoot the messenger. They looked interesting, they've been shown to not be as interesting as first looked, big deal. Hardly the end of the world...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 23, 2012)

Interesting chart:


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 23, 2012)

Just a leeeetle difference between the other capabilities of those packages.


----------



## Crispy (Jan 23, 2012)

Textedit is free, and that can edit RTF files.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 23, 2012)

Oh dear, now this looks like it'd be a real distraction to have!


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jan 23, 2012)

> _Tactile keyboards could likewise be replaced by a digital touch-sensitive version (endlessly configurable to your preferences for individual apps), and any part of the desk’s surface could be cordoned off as a trackpad area._



I don't get this. Is the whole thing a screen? 

Non tactile keyboards would be shit, but huge customisable control services very cool*. 

*Until you cried after spilling to much coffee and baccy on it.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 23, 2012)

Not sure what I think of the whole touchscreen table/surface idea just yet tbh, can't see it being too favourable to food or drink items though either!


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2012)

If I ever get my hands on a multi-touch surface that large I won't be putting mugs & monitors on top of it, it will be free of clutter and I will crouch over it playing some weird software instrument whilst doing a dodgy mad scientist playing the organ and cackling routine.

I shall certainly be in a fit state for such a performance if Im fed on a steady died of dodgy renders that represent unimaginative or silly concepts.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 23, 2012)

I'd probably use it for the ultimate game of Pac Man...


----------



## sim667 (Jan 24, 2012)

It'd only be good for watching loads of porn on....

Actually im starting to get into xplane, so it would be quite handy


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 24, 2012)

Apple's new earnings and sales numbers are in and unsurprisingly they've been exceptionally profitable (97 billion dollars in cash!):



> *Q1 2012 Financials:*
> 
> $46.33 billion in revenue
> $13.06 billion net profit
> ...



85 million iCloud users is a huge deal on the face of it but it would be good to know the detail, what's the defination of a user? Someone who has an Apple ID and syncs once across iCloud or one that uses it every day?


----------



## Crispy (Jan 24, 2012)

Given that iOS5 asks very nicely if you'd like to use iCloud for backups, I'm not suprised at those numbers.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 24, 2012)

Hmm indeed. Apparently Apple now are the biggest company in the world and the highest selling smartphone maker (beating Samsung barely by 2 million units)...incredible really given that a company has basically only sold one phone in the last 18 months.


----------



## Kanda (Jan 25, 2012)

Stat of the day: Only 58 companies in the world have larger market caps than APPLE has CASH


----------



## editor (Jan 25, 2012)

Kanda said:


> Stat of the day: Only 58 companies in the world have larger market caps than APPLE has CASH


Great! Wonderful! They're SOOOOOO rich!

Shame they're so fucking tight and selfish that they'd rather award themselves more and more pots of CASH instead of sharing the wealth with those who need help - you know, like the poor fuckers who make their products.


----------



## Kanda (Jan 25, 2012)

editor said:


> Great! Wonderful! They're SOOOOOO rich!
> 
> Shame they're so fucking tight and selfish that they'd rather award themselves more and more pots of CASH instead of sharing the wealth with those who need help - you know, like the poor fuckers who make their products.



I wasn't bigging them up, one of our traders mentioned it this morning. As you were though.. go on, really get the bit in between your teeth


----------



## maldwyn (Jan 25, 2012)

In today's climate isn't it rather risky having that much cash?

I'm expecting to wake up one day to discover they bought Google.


----------



## editor (Jan 25, 2012)

Kanda said:


> I wasn't bigging them up, one of our traders mentioned it this morning.


Got any more AMAZING facts about how filthy rich Apple are?


----------



## Kanda (Jan 25, 2012)

editor said:


> Got any more AMAZING facts about how filthy rich Apple are?



No, I thought it was quite a shocking fact, hence the capitalisation... but I'm sure you'll bang on about it continually...


----------



## Kanda (Jan 25, 2012)

Found this on the Gaurdian website, should keep you going:



> As the website Things Apple is Worth More Than points out, the company's market capitalisation exceeds the gross domestic product of Singapore, the value of gold held at the New York Federal Reserve, the largest bullion store in the world, and the value of the worldwide illegal drugs trade.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Jan 25, 2012)

Kanda said:


> _the value of the worldwide illegal drugs trade_


----------



## editor (Jan 25, 2012)

Global Stoner said:


>


It's a different sort of drug.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 25, 2012)

Kanda said:


> Stat of the day: Only 58 companies in the world have larger market caps than APPLE has CASH



BLOODY hell that's AMAZING!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 26, 2012)

The Tim Cook era has brought this interesting change:

Starting in June, Apple employees get $500 off Macs, $250 off iPads


----------



## maldwyn (Jan 26, 2012)

Loved the bit about the discount not applying to the Mac-mini.


----------



## editor (Jan 26, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> The Tim Cook era has brought this interesting change:
> 
> Starting in June, Apple employees get $500 off Macs, $250 off iPads


Wow! Staff discount! Sensational!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 26, 2012)

maldwyn said:


> Loved the bit about the discount not applying to the Mac-mini.



Haha yeah I clocked that too.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Jan 26, 2012)

Apple look like their making some inroads into enterprise using a bottom up approach:



> The march just continues on for Apple’s entry into the enterprise. New numbers show 46 percent of large companies now provide Macs to staff with more than half of those companies planning to support the iPhone. As for Android, well, we’ve already heard that story, right?
> 
> Apple is the posterboy for how “consumerization leads to enterprise adoption,” says Forrester Research. After surveying more than 10,000 North American information workers and IT decision-makers at enterprises with more than 1,000 workers, the researchers came to some intriguing findings.
> 
> ...


----------



## sim667 (Jan 27, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Apple look like their making some inroads into enterprise using a bottom up approach:



They'll struggle with branching into enterprise to replace PC however, until they iron out kinks with OSX, such as mismatching keychain passwords if the company has a enforced periodic password policy in place.


----------



## Kanda (Feb 2, 2012)

Apples corporate philanthropy...

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/02/apples-town-hall-meeting-emphasized-corporate-philanthropy/

Still not enough to some, I'm not saying it is either. I don't think you can compare Bill Gates though as that's his own fortune, Apple have shareholders and stuff to keep happy I guess.

Am sure Ed will jump all over this in feverish fashion


----------



## editor (Feb 2, 2012)

Kanda said:


> Apples corporate philanthropy...
> 
> http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/02/apples-town-hall-meeting-emphasized-corporate-philanthropy/
> 
> ...


Can't get worked up about it all, really.

It's just a few coppers in the fountain.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 2, 2012)

Kanda said:


> Apples corporate philanthropy...
> 
> http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/02/apples-town-hall-meeting-emphasized-corporate-philanthropy/
> 
> ...



And you were right.


----------



## Crispy (Feb 3, 2012)

Where?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 3, 2012)

It was a joke hence the  keep ya knickers on.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 3, 2012)

Apparently the update to iBook Author is the user rights, Apple have now made it clear it doesn't own the content that people publish via it. Not that anyone sane really thought that was what they tried to pull off...


----------



## editor (Feb 6, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Apparently the update to iBook Author is the user rights, Apple have now made it clear it doesn't own the content that people publish via it. Not that anyone sane really thought that was what they tried to pull off...


Except that's EXACTLY what the original agreement implied.



> Apple backtracks over iBooks Author book ownership row
> Authors' books are their own again, as Apple has changed its iBooks Author end user licensing agreement (EULA), now allowing users to sell their books elsewhere.
> 
> The clarified terms now state that although you can't distribute the .ibooks file anywhere but through iBooks, you can still tout your actual words around elsewhere.
> ...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 6, 2012)

Implications lay in the mind of the fandroid.


----------



## elbows (Feb 10, 2012)

I was amused by something when looking at the paperwork regarding the FBI background check into Steve Jobs that was undertaken when he was being considered for a government role several decades ago.

The source who talked about Jobs twisting the truth and distorting reality to achieve his goals, went on to say that he thought Jobs was suitable for government because in his opinion honesty and integrity are not required qualities to hold such a position


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 11, 2012)

elbows said:


> I was amused by something when looking at the paperwork regarding the FBI background check into Steve Jobs that was undertaken when he was being considered for a government role several decades ago.
> 
> The source who talked about Jobs twisting the truth and distorting reality to achieve his goals, went on to say that he thought Jobs was suitable for government because in his opinion honesty and integrity are not required qualities to hold such a position


 
Yep apparently those papers have also revealed that he sat on Bush' panel advising on exporting. More proof, as if needed, that Steve Jobs was pure evil not merely a businessman doing what he wanted for his money making corporation...


----------



## editor (Feb 11, 2012)

Re: iPads for schools, there's an interesting infographic here that argues that they remain far too expensive.
http://mashable.com/2012/02/10/ipad-textbooks-infographic/


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 11, 2012)

It's going to be interesting seeing how Apple make this work, whether they'll just rely on university take up and a smattering of high schools or whether they'll offer a cut price iPad at bulk discount or even a newer smaller model. Education is moving in this direction so whatever happens Apple are going to turn a profit, which is their motive.


----------



## elbows (Feb 12, 2012)

editor said:


> Re: iPads for schools, there's an interesting infographic here that argues that they remain far too expensive.
> http://mashable.com/2012/02/10/ipad-textbooks-infographic/


 
I am quite sure that the economic case cannot be made using the iPad at this point. The info graphic may have a few flaws, such as not considering cost of computer hardware (only software, no idea why) and Im not sure if they factored in bulk-buying discount either. But regardless, the iPad is hardly the ideal price for this sort of thing, and the textbook publishers are only onboard because its a model that allows them to maintain their income levels.

I would not attempt to give every student an iPad at this point. All Im looking for is for technology to start to disrupt the old way of doing things, and then at some point the economics should make more sense and something else can invade this market. But this idea will fail if Apple succeed in stitching up the content side for themselves, and if other hardware vendors fail to get a decent content ecosystem in place.

Much like issues with NHS being burdened by high price of drugs, my personal instincts lean towards nationalised non-profit entities providing stuff that meets some of societies vital needs, and education certainly falls into that category for me. But as the world has gone in the opposite direction for so long its rather hard to expand on such ideas at this point.


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2012)

Stay classy, Apple. 


> Apple has been accused of exploiting the death of *Whitney Houston* by increasing the price of her albums on iTunes.
> 
> Fans of the late singer, who was found dead in Los Angeles yesterday (February 11) at the age of 48, spoke out after discovering that the cost of her back catalogue had been put up since her passing.
> 
> ...


----------



## Crispy (Feb 13, 2012)

I wouldn't be surprised if the itunes store has an automated pricing system based on demand. £3 is a very low price for an album, so I suspect it wasn't selling well before. Now that it sells well, the pricing system prices it accordingly.

Or maybe evils.


----------



## sim667 (Feb 13, 2012)

Because the whitney fans couldnt have gone and bought it anywhere else.


----------



## grit (Feb 13, 2012)

Crispy said:


> I wouldn't be surprised if the itunes store has an automated pricing system based on demand. £3 is a very low price for an album, so I suspect it wasn't selling well before. Now that it sells well, the pricing system prices it accordingly.
> 
> Or maybe evils.


 
This is it, similar model to airplane ticket prices. Supply and demand innit.


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2012)

sim667 said:


> Because the whitney fans couldnt have gone and bought it anywhere else.


Oh, that makes it alright then.


----------



## sim667 (Feb 13, 2012)

No it doesnt, but in the grand scheme of things it doesnt really matter. All the stuff i buy off itunes costs £7.99, i dont whinge about when comparitively when I first started buying music it was £16-17 a cd in the high street.

It could have course been the labels, but everyone might aswell just jump on the bandwagon and assume apple have been naughty.


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 13, 2012)

Crispy said:


> I wouldn't be surprised if the itunes store has an automated pricing system based on demand. £3 is a very low price for an album, so I suspect it wasn't selling well before. Now that it sells well, the pricing system prices it accordingly.
> 
> Or maybe evils.



Nah it was clearly an executive decision to make more profit off the back of the death as any fule kno.


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2012)

sim667 said:


> It could have course been the labels, but everyone might aswell just jump on the bandwagon and assume apple have been naughty.


It'll be the label hiking the price, but Apple are still trousering a nice 30 per cent per sale.


----------



## Crispy (Feb 13, 2012)

editor said:


> It'll be the label hiking the price, but Apple are still trousering a nice 30 per cent per sale.


Just about covers their expenses, apparently.


----------



## sim667 (Feb 13, 2012)

editor said:


> It'll be the label hiking the price, but Apple are still trousering a nice 30 per cent per sale.


 
So the labels the problem, not apple. Apple have an agreement with the label to get a set percentage, they have no reason not to raise the price if asked to by the label, as they dont own the rights, the label does.


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Just about covers their expenses, apparently.


If you ignore all the obvious, vast and massively lucrative associated benefits for their iPod, iPhone, iPad, AppleTV products etc etc.


----------



## paolo (Feb 13, 2012)

editor said:


> It'll be the label hiking the price, but Apple are still trousering a nice 30 per cent per sale.


 
What %ge will other retailers be taking, following Sony's price rise?


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2012)

paolo999 said:


> What %ge will other retailers be taking, following Sony's price rise?


I've no idea, but seeing as Apple are by far the biggest online music retailer with the vastest share of the market, you can guarantee they'll be making the most money out if it.


----------



## maldwyn (Feb 13, 2012)

> Apple returned the album to its original price late on Sunday.


 
Phew, thank fuck for that.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/feb/13/whitney-houston-album-price


----------



## paolo (Feb 13, 2012)

editor said:


> I've no idea


----------



## Crispy (Feb 13, 2012)

editor said:


> I've no idea, but seeing as Apple are by far the biggest online music retailer with the vastest share of the market, you can guarantee they'll be making the most money out if it.


 Except, they won't. Running a large online store like itunes is not a cheap business. They don't report exact figures, but by all accounts, the itunes music store barely makes any profit.  


editor said:


> If you ignore all the obvious, vast and massively lucrative associated benefits for their iPod, iPhone, iPad, AppleTV products etc etc.


 So, I don't understand your point, then. Apple run their music store at break-even, which makes their hardware desirable. And?


----------



## Kanda (Feb 13, 2012)

editor said:


> Stay classy, Apple.


 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/feb/13/whitney-houston-album-price


> Sony Music has come under fire after it increased the price of a Whitney Houston album on Apple's iTunes Store hours after the singer was found dead.
> The music giant is understood to have lifted the wholesale price of Houston's greatest hits album, The Ultimate Collection, at about 4am California time on Sunday. This meant that the iTunes retail price of the album automatically increased from £4.99 to £7.99.


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Except, they won't. Running a large online store like itunes is not a cheap business. They don't report exact figures, but by all accounts, the itunes music store barely makes any profit.
> 
> So, I don't understand your point, then. Apple run their music store at break-even, which makes their hardware desirable. And?


It seems disingenuous to try and maintain that iTunes is some kind of separate entity that struggles to turn a profit when it is in fact an essential cog in Apple's money making machine.


----------



## Crispy (Feb 13, 2012)

editor said:


> It seems disingenuous to try and maintain that iTunes is some kind of separate entity that struggles to turn a profit when it is in fact an essential cog in Apple's money making machine.


I'm just trying to understand what your point was. The itunes store exists to make macs, ipods, iphones and ipads more desirable. We both know this.

The price of a Whitney Houston album goes up, and..... what?


----------



## sim667 (Feb 13, 2012)

editor said:


> It seems disingenuous to try and maintain that iTunes is some kind of separate entity that struggles to turn a profit when it is in fact an essential cog in Apple's money making machine.


 
But no-one has maintained that


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2012)

sim667 said:


> But no-one has maintained that


" the itunes music store barely makes any profit...."


----------



## sim667 (Feb 13, 2012)

editor said:


> " the itunes music store barely makes any profit...."


 
That doesnt make it a seperate entity


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2012)

sim667 said:


> That doesnt make it a seperate entity


*gives up


----------



## Crispy (Feb 13, 2012)

editor said:


> *gives up


I'm not sure what you were attempting in the first place.


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2012)

Crispy said:


> I'm not sure what you were attempting in the first place.


I was curious why you felt the need to trot out the line about iTunes supposedly barely making a profit when it's obviously an essential core element of Apple's massively lucrative business, that's all.


----------



## sim667 (Feb 13, 2012)

Crispy said:


> I'm not sure what you were attempting in the first place.


 
Me neither.


----------



## Kanda (Feb 13, 2012)

rabid curiosity...


----------



## Crispy (Feb 13, 2012)

editor said:


> I was curious why you felt the need to trot out the line about iTunes supposedly barely making a profit when it's obvious that it is an essential core element of Apple's massively lucrative business, that's all.


You said "Apple are still trousering a nice 30 per cent per sale."
But those trousers have holes in their pockets - the store costs as much to run as it brings in. I "trotted that line out" because it counters the argument (which you appeared to be making - excuse me if I misunderstood you) that Apple are profiteering from the price increase of Whitney Houston's Ultimate Collection.


----------



## Divisive Cotton (Feb 13, 2012)

There's lot of chatter today about an iPad 3 release in March

Was there any substantial difference between iPad 1 and iPad 2?


----------



## Crispy (Feb 13, 2012)

Divisive Cotton said:


> There's lot of chatter today about an iPad 3 release in March
> 
> Was there any substantial difference between iPad 1 and iPad 2?


Faster, more RAM, cameras front and rear, different case designs. Pretty big differences. 

3 will probably be externally identical to 2, but with the 2x resolution screen, faster and with even more RAM.


----------



## sim667 (Feb 13, 2012)

Divisive Cotton said:


> There's lot of chatter today about an iPad 3 release in March
> 
> Was there any substantial difference between iPad 1 and iPad 2?


 
Its cus its been on the macrumors site

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/12/ipad-3-to-pave-way-for-1080p-itunes-content-and-a-new-apple-tv/

Also of interest, the FLA have started auditingthe goings on at foxconn....... Apple have joined the FLA and are the first tech company to have done so apparently

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/13...s-manufacturing-facilities-at-apples-request/


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2012)

Crispy said:


> You said "Apple are still trousering a nice 30 per cent per sale."
> But those trousers have holes in their pockets - the store costs as much to run as it brings in


I can't keep up with you here.

Does the the itunes store exist "to make macs, ipods, iphones and ipads more desirable" (and therefore help generate big profits for Apple), or does it make nothing at all for Apple?



Anyway, this is pointless.


----------



## Crispy (Feb 13, 2012)

editor said:


> I can't keep up with you here.
> 
> Does the the itunes store exist to make macs, ipods, iphones and ipads more desirable (and therefore help generate big profits for Apple), or does it make nothing at all for Apple?


That's exactly what it does. And in order to do so, it is run on a for-cost model. It is deliberately not overpriced and a profit-making entitiy in its own right, so that it can offer a good, high-value service that makes Apple hardware desirable.

How, therefore, can Apple be described as "trousering" the money that the itunes store directly brings in, as you claimed?


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2012)

Crispy said:


> How, therefore, can Apple be described as "trousering" the money that the itunes store directly brings in, as you claimed?


FYI:


> Apple: 2011 revenue of *US$5.4 billion* in net sales for the iTunes store, App store, and iBookstore
> http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/07/tech/apple-itunes-hacking/index.html


----------



## Crispy (Feb 13, 2012)

editor said:


> FYI:


That's revenue, before costs, and it represents about 10% of their total revenue. Now, nobody has the costs breakdown for the itunes store - that's trade secret I should think. But Apple have always maintained that the _profit_ from the store is inconsequential compared to the profit they make on their hardware.


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2012)

The profits of most companies would appear "inconsequential" compared to the profit Apple make on their hardware so that seems a bit of a daft comparison, tbh.

Even a small percentage of Apple's monster, record-breaking profits would add up to a mountain of cash and your notion that iTunes make no money at all ("the store costs as much to run as it brings in") really seems flawed to me.


----------



## Crispy (Feb 13, 2012)

As does your notion that Apple "trouser" their 30%. Shall we shake hands on somewhere in the middle?


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 13, 2012)

maldwyn said:


> Phew, thank fuck for that.
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/feb/13/whitney-houston-album-price



Apple's PR department must have had a right tizzy when the rise kicked in!


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 13, 2012)

sim667 said:


> Its cus its been on the macrumors site
> 
> http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/12/ipad-3-to-pave-way-for-1080p-itunes-content-and-a-new-apple-tv/
> 
> ...



How independent is this group in reality? Won't this just end up with a whitewash of a report?


----------



## sim667 (Feb 13, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> How independent is this group in reality? Won't this just end up with a whitewash of a report?



No idea, it's the only actual mac site I use and they normally pretty spot on


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 13, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Shall we shake hands on somewhere in the middle?


Please do, this is getting dull


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 13, 2012)

sim667 said:


> No idea, it's the only actual mac site I use and they normally pretty spot on


 
Fair enough, am a little cynical of this stuff personally...


----------



## pinkychukkles (Feb 13, 2012)

Wonder if the new macbooks range will have a "retina" display - hmmm, that would give me the techno-horn...


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 14, 2012)

pinkychukkles said:


> Wonder if the new macbooks range will have a "retina" display - hmmm, that would give me the techno-horn...



Heh yeah that would be cool...


----------



## pinkychukkles (Feb 14, 2012)

An erotic technological fantasy it shall remain, even if true, as I have nary a brass farthing to rub together nor the need to upgrade besides the innate desire to buy something shiny and new. _However _if anyone else is about to offer some alms at the alter of Apple, Topcashback are offering 6.06% cashback on purchases (ends in 5 days).


----------



## elbows (Feb 15, 2012)

Sony have apologised for the Whitney Houston album price hike, saying it was an error.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17039076


----------



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 15, 2012)

Yeah 'error'...


----------



## editor (Feb 15, 2012)

Say hello to Appgate! This is causing a big enough kerfuffle for questions to be asked in Congress:


> *Your iPhone's privacy problem*
> To understand the unintended irony of Jobs' words, you need to fully understand the huge privacy problem that is happening right now in your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. It goes like this: Path and other apps—we don't know which—steal your contacts' information into their corporate servers without telling you about it. These apps use an address book service that Apple provides within iOS, which is similar to the geographic location service also present in the operating system that powers all the iDevices.
> 
> The difference is that the iPhone's GPS service requires you to actively approve that the app can access it. Apple's operating system asks you for permission every time an application wants to know for your location, not the app itself. This is a barrier that the app can't bypass. The security system is designed in this way so the app—which could be anything from a game to your typical free flashlight app—can't spy on you without you noticing it.
> ...





> The latest privacy flap centers on certain smartphone apps written for Apple's iOS that were found to collect user contact lists without first getting permission. Even if this doesn't turn out to be as widespread, it's still a black eye for the developers and the company that hosted their products on its app store. Dave Zorob, a developer who has created dozens of social apps over the years, notes that many developers are currently accessing address book data without consumers knowing. In 99 percent of the cases, he says, the users won't ever know.
> "You don't know that they're doing it, and you have no idea what they might do with your contacts' information," he says.
> Read more: ​http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57...ves-reminder-youre-on-your-own/#ixzz1mUw2UIDo​


 
*Why You Should Be Pissed That Apple Lets Developers Take Your Contact Info*
http://gizmodo.com/5885350/why-you-...apple-lets-developers-take-your-contact-info/


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## Kid_Eternity (Feb 16, 2012)

Apple said they'll have an update out/ a change of policy would should stop this. Perhaps we should wait for their fix before we rush to judgement?


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## editor (Feb 16, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Apple said they'll have an update out/ a change of policy would should stop this. Perhaps we should wait for their fix before we rush to judgement?


There been no "rush to judgement," just a simple statement of the facts.


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## Kid_Eternity (Feb 16, 2012)

Here's a handy video of the new OS coming this summer for those that don't want to wade through tons of reports about it:


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## editor (Feb 17, 2012)

Seems Apple is punishing the New York Times for daring to run negative stories about the suffering of workers creating their products: 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...s-not-meshing/2012/02/16/gIQAzmXPIR_blog.html


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## Kid_Eternity (Feb 17, 2012)

Heh yeah poor little NYT. 

I'm sure they know the media game just as well as Apple...


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 14, 2012)

This is...odd.


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## elbows (Mar 14, 2012)

Not so much odd as heading for the same lawsuit doom as the Jobs barbie doll we heard about a while back.

I don't think we should be surprised that some people want to cash in on symbols that become some sort of icon, no matter whether you think they should be iconic or not, whether you love, hate or are indifferent.

I would have liked an Alan Sugar doll back in the 1980's so I could have burnt it for ruining my dear, dear ZX Spectrum


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Mar 15, 2012)

Looks a little on the plump side.


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## sim667 (Mar 15, 2012)

Everyone can keep on banging on about the workers in china and how apple are satan incarnate, but they're still the only tech company (that I know of) belonging to a Fair Labor organisation and have started the process of auditing foxconn with the intention of making changes.

So in my honest opinion its those who are buying other brands made by foxconn who should really be asking about their own choice of brands. And realistically its for the government of china to make sure that working conditions are up to scratch, and having visitied about 4 or 5 factories personally that make your plates that you buy in brand shops in the UK how is it that no-one sits up and pays attention to those brands, because I can guarantee from first hand experience that those factories have literally no health and safety, and shit working conditions, 2 of the factories I went to basically had its workers living in a ramshackle slum of tents and wood all year round out back, and they were supplying household brand names here too.

And the incessant links to stories on here about it is a bit childish and irritating, the whole topic needs its own thread.

edit: Took brand name out.


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## Crispy (Mar 15, 2012)

sim667 said:


> the whole topic needs its own thread.


There already is one IIRC...


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## sim667 (Mar 15, 2012)

Crispy said:


> There already is one IIRC...


 
Ah so those who are posting up links all the time on here relating to labour and foxconn are basically trying to continuously derail the thread and cause a bunfight. Brilliant


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 15, 2012)

sim667 said:


> Everyone can keep on banging on about the workers in china and how apple are satan incarnate, but they're still the only tech company (that I know of) belonging to a Fair Labor organisation and have started the process of auditing foxconn with the intention of making changes.
> 
> So in my honest opinion its those who are buying other brands made by foxconn who should really be asking about their own choice of brands. And realistically its for the government of china to make sure that working conditions are up to scratch, and having visitied about 4 or 5 factories personally that make your plates that you buy in brand shops in the UK how is it that no-one sits up and pays attention to those brands, because I can guarantee from first hand experience that those factories have literally no health and safety, and shit working conditions, 2 of the factories I went to basically had its workers living in a ramshackle slum of tents and wood all year round out back, and they were supplying household brand names here too.
> 
> ...



The funny thing is the argument put forward was that you have to focus on Apple because they have the most money and are leaders in this field so if they changed others would follow...


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## sim667 (Mar 15, 2012)

Pressure should be put on the chinese government to improve working conditions across all factories. Not make it the focus of apple. Every area of retail that has products made in china is guilty of this.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 15, 2012)

sim667 said:


> Pressure should be put on the chinese government to improve working conditions across all factories. Not make it the focus of apple. Every area of retail that has products made in china is guilty of this.


 
The pressure should be on foxconn and the government, it should highlight ALL companies that use these factories and endorse these practices. The aim should be to make the lives of the workers better, not to for fan bois to be able to feel smug while pointing the finger at their favourite company to hate.


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## Crispy (Mar 15, 2012)

I always pronounce "Fanbois" in my head in French: "Fanbwah" to make it sound even more silly.


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## sim667 (Mar 15, 2012)

Crispy said:


> I always pronounce "Fanbois" in my head in French: "Fanbwah" to make it sound even more silly.


 
I pronounce it fanbwoys in my head, but using an accent like the ghetto booty names vid on youtube


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## editor (Mar 15, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> The pressure should be on foxconn and the government, it should highlight ALL companies that use these factories and endorse these practices. The aim should be to make the lives of the workers better, not to for fan bois to be able to feel smug while pointing the finger at their favourite company to hate.


For sure. And the best place to start is with the company that is making the most money out of this exploitation. Sorry if that happens to be your favourite company, but as any activist will tell you, it makes sense to go for the most high-profile companies first.


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## maldwyn (Mar 15, 2012)

A company by company approach isn't really a solution. How would it work; Fox employees making Apple products in Shed A will get better conditions than those making shiny stuff for someothercompany in Shed B.


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## editor (Mar 15, 2012)

maldwyn said:


> A company by company approach isn't really a solution. How would it work; Fox employees making Apple products in Shed A will get better conditions than those making shiny stuff for someothercompany in Shed B.


Didn't happen that way with animal testing/sweatshop campaigns at all. Nike were targeted by sweatshop campaigns and forced to change their ways, and almost all their rivals followed suit*.
Same happened with Boots over animal testing.

*the inevitable mix of greenwash notwithstanding


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## sim667 (Mar 15, 2012)

I thought most sportswear was still made in sweatshops.


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## editor (Mar 15, 2012)

The Nike campaign group explains their rationale for going for the biggest company. The parallels with Apple seem obvious to me.


> ...it's important to pick a company that can afford the cost of improvements. Nike is so profitable and sells its shoes for such high prices that it can well afford to double the workers' wages without increasing the retail price.
> 
> Thirdly, Nike is the biggest shoe company in the world and puts itself forth as an industry leader. Their Code of Conduct says: "in the area of human rights... in the communities in which we do business, we seek to do not only what is required, but what is expected of a leader." By targeting the industry leader, we hoped to make changes throughout the whole industry. This strategy has proven effective. Reebok, for example, has been making improvements in its overseas factories even though it has not been the target of a major campaign. Adidas, fearful of being tarred with the Nike brush, is starting to make changes as well.
> http://www.globalexchange.org/sweatfree/nike/faq


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 15, 2012)

sim667 said:


> I pronounce it fanbwoys in my head, but using an accent like the ghetto booty names vid on youtube


 
Heh, I do that too.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 15, 2012)

maldwyn said:


> A company by company approach isn't really a solution. How would it work; Fox employees making Apple products in Shed A will get better conditions than those making shiny stuff for someothercompany in Shed B.


 
Yep, market dynamic will just play itself out, those serious will look for new ways to achieve this end.


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## maldwyn (Mar 15, 2012)

Editor, I'm not arguing against you, what's happening to workers in China is truly shocking. However, singling out Apple can be counterproductive, their woefully inadequate steps to monitor the situation is a joke but they are limited in what they can do.

Blame the Chinese government for allowing it and our consumerism for supporting it - it's unfair to focus on just those who buy Apple products - a quick flip through my Argos catalogue and it's a challenge trying to find something not Made in China.


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## editor (Mar 15, 2012)

maldwyn said:


> However, singling out Apple can be counterproductive, their woefully inadequate steps to monitor the situation is a joke but they are limited in what they can do.


I disagree, for the reasons set out by the Nike campaign strategy. Apple are obscenely rich. Disgustingly rich. They could make conditions better for millions of workers and still have immense wealth left in their overstuffed accounts. Targeting the one company making *billions* more out of this exploitation than anyone else is an obvious, logical move.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 15, 2012)

maldwyn said:


> Editor, I'm not arguing against you, what's happening to workers in China is truly shocking. However, singling out Apple can be counterproductive, their woefully inadequate steps to monitor the situation is a joke but they are limited in what they can do.
> 
> Blame the Chinese government for allowing it and our consumerism for supporting it - it's unfair to focus on just those who buy Apple products - a quick flip through my Argos catalogue and it's a challenge trying to find something not Made in China.


 
Well quite, Apple having the most money is a red herring too. They are just one company, if ALL the big players stood up and said they wanted reforms in return for their continued business Foxconn and China would take note. But they're not going to for some clear geo political reasons, expecting Apple to go it alone is naive at best and just another boring smear at worse.


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## gabi (Mar 15, 2012)

Why doesn't this thread get renewed every month a la the Brixton chitter chatter one...? it's fucking huge... really needs its own sub-forum..


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 15, 2012)

gabi said:


> Why doesn't this thread get renewed every month a la the Brixton chitter chatter one...? it's fucking huge... really needs its own sub-forum..


 
LOL! I'm not sure it needs it's own subforum but yeah it could do we refreshing every now and then. I try to start threads based around news or specific topics to peel off discussion so this isn't too hard to follow that might be one way to go, to devolve discussion?


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## sim667 (Mar 15, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> LOL! I'm not sure it needs it's own subforum but yeah it could do we refreshing every now and then. I try to start threads based around news or specific topics to peel off discussion so this isn't too hard to follow that might be one way to go, to devolve discussion?


mac, windows and Linux separate subforums I think would be a good idea, same with smart phone platforms.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 15, 2012)

sim667 said:


> mac, windows and Linux separate subforums I think would be a good idea, same with smart phone platforms.



Start a poll thread and see what people say. Not sure there's a big demand myself but might worth taking the temperature of posters on the idea...


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## editor (Mar 15, 2012)

gabi said:


> Why doesn't this thread get renewed every month a la the Brixton chitter chatter one...? it's fucking huge... really needs its own sub-forum..


Happy to close this one and start a new one along the lines of "Apple new product rumours and general news, 2012" if that's what people want.

Hit the 'like' button if you do like.


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## editor (Mar 15, 2012)

sim667 said:


> mac, windows and Linux separate subforums I think would be a good idea, same with smart phone platforms.


Not enough traffic for separate sub forums and there'd only be about one post a week in the spoddy Linux forum.


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## editor (Mar 15, 2012)

New thread coming right up by popular-ish demand:
http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/apple-new-product-rumours-and-general-news-2012.290384/


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