Category: apple

Posted on

Back to the Mac.

October 20th sees an Apple event called Back to the Mac.

Now no more details than that.

There are two key clues though in the image.

First it says Mac, this probably means that it is about the Mac and not another iOS device.

Second, peeping behind that apple is a Lion.

Now this means that it is time for Apple to announce their new OS called Lion. Will it be 10.7 or 11.0 well we don’t know. A lot depends on what the big new thing will be.

10.6 was only a slight improvement over 10.5 and to be honest I am using 10.6 on my iMac and 10.5 on a MacBook Pro and I rarely notice the difference. What new stuff could we see in 10.7, no idea.

However if this is 11.0 then could we see the iOS touch interface integrated with the OS X (or is that OS XI) as rumoured earlier this year?

Whatever happens it will be interesting to see what Apple have to say.

Posted on

£99 Apple TV

Yes!

Well nearly yes!

Apple today announced their new Apple TV. A quarter of the size of the original Apple TV, no hard drive and a much lower price.

£99 is a much nicer price than the £200+ of the older version.

The main downside is a lack of storage, however streaming is possible from both Macs and iOS devices so not too much of an issue. My experiences of 802.11n streaming is that it does work fine and is much better than 802.11g wifi. I am thinking though that the iPad and the iPhone use the slower 2.4GHz 802.11n and my 802.11n network runs at 5GHz I may need to add a third wireless network at home if I want to stream from my iPad.

Posted on

Axon Haptic

Now this is an interesting concept.

A 10″ tablet that underneath runs Darwin. As a result though the tablet can run both Windows and Linux, you can also run Darwin on the device too. This means that if you wanted to and were willing to breach Apple’s EULA you could install Snow Leopard on the device quite easily!

The tablet has a front facing camera, three USB ports, an SD Card slot, display port, wifi, Bluetooth and GPS.

Though the key for this device on whether it is any good is whether the touchscreen is as good as the sort of touchscreens that Apple uses.

At $750 (£480) this is quite cheap, but will be interesting to see whether the device will move from concept to production.

Find out more.

Posted on

Why, Apple, why?

There are times that I wonder if those that design software actually ever use it? I usually lay this charge against Microsoft, but last night Apple in their wisdom really annoyed me.

I have a very poor internet connection and as a result if I download any big files I generally try and do it overnight, partly as these downloads take so long and mainly that if I am downloading files, it sucks up my bandwidth making the internet unusable for anything else.

So last night I set iTunes on my iMac to download a HD episode of Doctor Who and a couple of very large iPad Apps. About 2-3GB of data.

I went to bed, came down this morning to find a message from iTunes asking me if I wanted to download the latest version. Well I do have this setup in preferences, so that iTunes checks for updates.

So what’s the problem?

Well due to this unanswered dialogue (I was asleep in bed) iTunes had stopped downloading my downloads. It was waiting for me to say yes or no to downloading the new version of iTunes!

As a result I had only downloaded one of my downloads, all the rest were waiting…

Why can’t iTunes continue to download the files in the background, why does it have to wait until I answer the dialogue box?

In my mind this is poor design. If I decide that I do want to update iTunes, I can always stop the downloads, in fact I would probably want to finish them first before updating. So iTunes should really keep downloading even if it is asking me if I want to update.

So the end result is that I have to turn off “checking for updates” so this doesn’t happen again.

Posted on

Oh, new Mac mini

Oh well pleased to see Apple have released a new Mac mini. Not only is there a new form factor there is also faster graphics and key feature for me is the HDMI port.

I will now be able to connect the Mac mini to my HDTV. I should then be able to play HD content from iTunes. Of course at the moment in the UK this only means HD TV Shows. HD Films are only available to rent at the moment on the Apple TV or the iPad. I do wonder if that will change now with this new Mac mini?

It is now a lot more expensive than it was before so that is one downside.

Key question I need to ask is, does the superior functionality of the Mac mini justify the increased cost over an Apple TV?

Should I wait for the rumoured new Apple TV which is rumoured to cost less than a $100?

So going to wait at this time.

Posted on

WWDC Keynote

Today is Steve Jobs’ Keynote at WWDC.

Traditionally we get to hear about new products and new software.

As might be expected the web is rife with rumours about what we will hear about. I’ll let you Google them to find what they are.

Will probably follow the keynote via Macrumors.

Posted on

Apple rumored to be readying Mac mini with HDMI

Engadget reports that Apple may be ready to launch a new Mac mini with HDMI.

A Mac mini with HDMI. Makes sense, right? Well, it hasn’t to Apple so far, but it looks like it just might be ready to change its tune. That’s according to AppleInsider, at least, which has it from “two people familiar with the matter” that prototypes of a Mac mini with an HDMI port have been seen making the rounds in the usual inner circles.

Back in March 2008 (two years ago) there were rumours that Apple were going to kill the Mac mini. Back then I said:

I do like the Mac mini, it works well as a little Mac for testing and trying things out as well as introducing people to the Mac. I also have used it in the past as a server for various web services and for limited use it works really well – probably would not be too happy if it was a production server.

I did try it as a TV computer, in other words connected to my TV, but I never really used it, in the main as it was an old G4 PPC model and was rather slow for recording and capturing video from an EyeTV USB device. The newer Intel models have the advantage of remote control and faster processors and graphics better suited to video.

I am looking to get a new TV when the Freeview HD models become more widely available. At the time I did consider getting an Apple TV over putting a Mac mini under the TV; as the Apple TV did have HDMI and as well as buying HD TV shows from the UK iTunes Store, you could rent HD movies for use ONLY on the Apple TV. If there is a new Mac mini with HDMI and you can rent HD movies on the new Mac mini then I may get one over an Apple TV.

Posted on

Really, all that from a job advert!

You have to love the rumour sites, have a read of this article from Macrumors.

Computerworld points to an Apple job listing posted last week which suggests that Apple is looking to expand the iPhone OS beyond the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad to additional platforms.

It suggests….

Let’s all speculate the future production of Apple products based on the job description of someone who will probably design those future products…

I love the rumour sites!