DaniWeb IT Discussion Community - Apple Hardware http://www.daniweb.com/forums/ en-US Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:13:18 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.daniweb.com/alphaimages/misc/rss.jpg DaniWeb IT Discussion Community - Apple Hardware http://www.daniweb.com/forums/ News Story Apple tablet - delayed or fictionware? http://www.daniweb.com/news/story239750.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:38:56 GMT Apple may have delayed the release of the tablet computer, according to a number of sources, because of component selection. Inevitably this has led to a number of reports that it's not going to happen after all; one website in particular believes the whole thing was a result of our overwrought imagination in Apple user-land.

I'm not so sure, but I do believe in the delays (if you can 'delay' a product to which you haven't attached a date). Apple made an astonishing amount of noise with the iPod when there were already music players out there, and it still owns most of the market. It did the same with the iPhone which most emphatically isn't the first music phone.

I have no doubt the company thinks it's about time to launch another category-killer, and a tablet - something HP and others are already more or less making - to demolish the e-reader-only market, zap a few portable DVD players and generally outsell every personal entertainment and business-lite device out there, would be seen as an excellent idea.

Two things have to be right, though. The price is one, and if - as reports suggest - that's increasing rather than shrinking as launch time approaches - then it's not yet ready for the market. The second, closely related, is the economy. People simply aren't going to buy an optional 'nice-to-have' when they're concerned about mortages and similar considerations.

For those reasons I believe Apple is indeed developing a tablet. I'd be surprised if there isn't a working prototype somewhere. But depending on how component supplies and the larger economy shape up, early 2010 is unlikely to be the optimum time to launch it - if 2010 is the right time at all. ]]> Apple Hardware GuyClapperton http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread239750.html News Story How Does Apple Avoid The Commodity Trap? http://www.daniweb.com/news/story238289.html Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:27:23 GMT At a time when prices are being driven down across the spectrum of electronics, one company clearly has avoided this trap: Apple. While others struggle to squeeze profits from a market that is becoming increasingly commoditized (sub-$200 netbooks anyone?), Apple maintains its edge and its hefty... At a time when prices are being driven down across the spectrum of electronics, one company clearly has avoided this trap: Apple. While others struggle to squeeze profits from a market that is becoming increasingly commoditized (sub-$200 netbooks anyone?), Apple maintains its edge and its hefty profit margin. It got me wondering just how Apple continues to charge prices far above the rest of the market and not only get away with it, but thrive.

Design

First of all, you have to start with quality. If you are going to charge a hefty amount for your products, you better make damn sure you make good ones. I know that critics will say that Apple's proprietary propensity is one reason it maintains control of its market, yet it doesn't seem to bother its loyal legion of customers as much as it does its critics. As I wrote in Apple's Value is so Much More Than Skin Deep, after using PCs for more than 20 years, I didn't come out of the womb as an Apple fan boy (see my missive: The Myth of the Apple Fan Boy):

Quote:
I used the product and I fell in love with it...It is a gorgeous piece of engineering and I paid a lot of money for it, a lot more than I would have had I bought a comparable PC, but when you get down to it, in my long experience, there simply is no comparable PC.
Marketing

Apple is genius at marketing its products. It creates a mystique around them. It builds up interest and excitement. People look forward to their product announcements.

Part of the reason is the design, but part of it is Apple's expertise at creating desire. This is not minimize the importance of the design because mystique can only take you so far. At some point you have to deliver quality goods and Apple for the most part has done that.

Service

The best tech support I ever received was from WordPerfect back in the DOS days. It was free, they knew the product inside-out and they would take the time to help you. Apple Care is a close second. It's not free (except for the first year), but I've called them many times and I find mostly quality people who know what they're talking about.

Just last weekend, the WiFi connector stopped working on my son's iPod Touch. I called Apple Care. The tech had me try a couple of things. They didn't work and he arranged for me to ship back the current unit and send me a new one. No fussing. They just did it and even shipped me a box to return it in.

Apple has been criticized for not getting into the Netbook market, and for not substantially lowering its prices in the midst of a recession. Yet what is their motivation to drive down their own prices? It would only force them toward the commodity trap that they have so successfully avoided and why would they do that? ]]> Apple Hardware Techwriter10 http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread238289.html News Story My 5 Favorite Free iPhone Apps http://www.daniweb.com/news/story238040.html Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:37:28 GMT One of the great things about the iPhone is of course the App Store, which is a growing eco system of interesting applications. I tend to stick to the free ones, and not long ago I went and downloaded a bunch of new freebies. These are my favorites from that bunch: *Louvre* This is one cool... One of the great things about the iPhone is of course the App Store, which is a growing eco system of interesting applications. I tend to stick to the free ones, and not long ago I went and downloaded a bunch of new freebies. These are my favorites from that bunch:

Louvre

This is one cool app for art lovers. It opens to a picture of the outside of the Louvre with famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) glass pyramid, then displays a cover flow with the different parts of the app. You can explore Louvre artwork, take a tour, or explore rooms inside the museum. It's amazing, comprehensive and the navigation is elegant and simple. You can even bookmark favorite places, so you can find your way back easily.

Nasa

If you want to keep up with news from Nasa, this app is a must-have for Nasa fans. It has information on missions and includes images and educational video. For instance, this month it features a video on the Crab Nebula, which is visible in the November sky using a telescope. Like the Louvre app, it's fun and educational, but it also is a very smart move by Nasa because it lets people know what they're doing with our tax dollars (and a lot of it is pretty neat, let me tell you).

ESPN Score Center

I don't know how I missed this one before because it's an essential application for any (American) sports fan. It takes a while to load the first time you open it (I mean several minutes), but once it's ready to go, you can customize the interface to include only the sports you're interested in. What's more, you can define your favorite teams, so they appear prominently at the top of the list of the scores. It also has a ticker with the latest sports news (like you see on ESPN Sports Center) at the bottom of the screen. You cycle through the different sports by dragging across the screen to reveal the next page (in a similar fashion to the Weather app when you add multiple cities). The navigation is not quite as elegant as some of the others, but it's very useful for keeping up with the latest sports news.

The Weather Channel

The standard iPhone Weather app gives you temperature and a general forecast, but if you want a more detailed weather picture, this app is for you. The first time you load it, it asks if it can find your location and then customizes the weather for your location without having to enter any information. You can see the current weather details, an hourly, 36 hour or 10 day forecast. What's more you can view the weather map, video and severe weather alerts for your area.

Yelp

I've been using the Around Me app to find restaurants, but a friend recently recommended Yelp and it offers a similar functionality, but with the user reviews front and center. Once again, it asks to find your location so you can use it wherever you are, then click one of the selections such as Restaurants to find the ones in your vicinity. You can filter by distance, price and whether it's open. I would also like to filter by restaurant type and which ones reviewers liked best (number of stars), but in spite of these limitations, it provides a good starting point for finding food or other stores in an area. Also includes a "Talk" client where you can post questions to people who happen to be online.

So there you have it: my five recent free favorites. Leave a comment and let me know some of yours. ]]> Apple Hardware Techwriter10 http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread238040.html News Story iPhone virus in the wild http://www.daniweb.com/news/story237206.html Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:35:34 GMT An Apple iPhone virus is on the loose in Australia. According to reports it's an odd one; it replaces your wallpaper with a picture of singer Rick Astley and an inoffensive slogan. It affects only jailbroken phones, in other words phones whose owners have fiddled with the operating system to allow the use of any software.

There are a number of ways of looking at this. First, it's a relief I use my non-jailbroken iPhone 3G, with all the protection Apple and 02 can muster on it. Second, what a peculiar thing to do - just put a virus out there that doesn't do any harm, just illustrates the possible damage malware could do if it were sent out by someone who isn't very nice.

This in turn raises the awkward scenario - that some virus writers may not be the idiot psychopaths everyone believes. I know an ex-hacker who started very early on, hacking into a member of the British Royal Family's bank account. He didn't do it maliciously, he wanted to highlight the fact that it could be done - and in doing so he believed (and so do I) that he was doing a lot of people a substantial favour, as nobody understood the risks at the time. He is now a security consultant.

I do wonder whether this instance is so different. It appears that someone well-meaning has put an infection out there that doesn't damage anything, just nudges data around a little and puts an extra picture and text onto a phone. The implication, clearly, is that you could suffer dreadfully if you don't address this; it seems benevolent in intent.

A nice virus, who'd have thought it. Coming soon: the happy plague! ]]> Apple Hardware GuyClapperton http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread237206.html personal laserwriter nt http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread237065.html Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:41:35 GMT Is there any software available that enables me to use my personal laserwriter nt with Leopard? I have an Asante ethernet bridge. Is there any software available that enables me to use my personal laserwriter nt with Leopard?
I have an Asante ethernet bridge. ]]> Apple Hardware carlcash http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread237065.html ibook G3 headphone jack problem http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread235764.html Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:59:12 GMT I have an ibook G3/600 and the headphone jack has stopped working. ie..the internal speakers stay on even though the control panel says it is in external mode and no sound comes from the headphones. Any idea? I have an ibook G3/600 and the headphone jack has stopped working. ie..the internal speakers stay on even though the control panel says it is in external mode and no sound comes from the headphones. Any idea? ]]> Apple Hardware Chris Grzesik http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread235764.html News Story $50 Wolfram Alpha App Makes iPhone Top Grossing List http://www.daniweb.com/news/story234228.html Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:36:07 GMT I got a gloating email today from those awfully clever folk at Wolfram Alpha which informed me that the iPhone app version of the 'Computational Knowledge Engine' popped up on the App Store What's Hot list. What's more, they positively gushed at how they were "pleasantly surprised" to see the app "appear on the store's 'Top Grossing' list on the second day it was available and remain there through the week".

Perhaps whoever wrote that email should have first asked the Wolfram Alpha engine why the app was on the top grossing list. I suspect that drawing on more than 20 years of development, 50,000 plus built-in algorithms and 10 trillion pieces of continually updated and curated data, it might have popped out the following answer: because it costs fifty bucks, stupid.

Sure, it may well let you get "expert-level answers to your specific freeform questions—complete with stunning, dynamically generated visualizations and tables, and richer and deeper information than you imagined possible" right there on your iPhone. It may well come replete with "elegant native iPhone interface that includes a special notation keyboard, customized iPhone output, editable history, and integration with maps and other iPhone services" for good measure.

It may well also be less than half the price of a graphing calculator at $49.99 as one Wolfram Alpha spokesperson has insisted, while missing the point that an iPhone graphing calculator app can be picked up for just a couple of bucks. And missing the point that a graphing calculator doesn't need an Internet connection to work. And missing the biggest point of all, that anyone with an Internet connection (including iPhone users) can use the full Wolfram Alpha service on the web for a lot less than $49.99 - to be precise, for £49.99 less as the service is totally free.

Which makes me sit back and ask myself just who is buying this app on the iPhone in such volume as to push it onto those top grossing and what's hot lists? Now I don't claim to be the brainiest of boxes, but I'm not stupid enough to be paying $50 for something that I can get for free. ]]> Apple Hardware newsguy http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread234228.html <![CDATA[Really Freakin' annoying Problems with my mac PLZ HELP!]]> http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread232470.html Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:11:33 GMT Hey guys

I have an old school macbook, it has caused me many problems but this current one is probably the most annoying:

The fan is CONSTANTLY on like I can't make it stop, this is either with some apps or WITH NO APPS RUNNING.


sorry for the caps I am just, as you can probably tell, a bit annoyed

secondly, the battery life is FU##D I mean it used to last like 3 hours, only a month or so ago

now It has just gone from 100% to 44% in about half an hour

And it's really hot, so I have taken a picture that might be helpfull, I'm sure somethings wrong I just don't know what

[img=http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/9494/annoyinnn.th.jpg]

If anyone can help I would be so grateful.

Jon ]]> Apple Hardware jonoj http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread232470.html G5 RAM - pc3200u-30330 vs 30440 and Ram DIMM size differences http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread231511.html Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:07:50 GMT Just recently bought more ram for my powermac g5 - Specs: Machine Name: Power Mac G5 Machine Model: PowerMac7,3 CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (3.1) Number Of CPUs: 2 CPU Speed: 2.3 GHz L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB Memory: 3.5 GB Just recently bought more ram for my powermac g5 -

Specs:
Machine Name: Power Mac G5
Machine Model: PowerMac7,3
CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (3.1)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 2.3 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 3.5 GB
Bus Speed: 1.15 GHz


If anything it seems slower when using Final Cut Studio

My question-- I noticed my newly installed ram is 30440 and the older/original ram is 30330
Is this a problem?

Also, I have the ram installed in pairs- but they are in different sizes.
One 256mb pair (30330)
One 512mb pair (30330)
and one 1gb pair (30440)

Please advise/help!

~Jeff ]]> Apple Hardware prsrose http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread231511.html News Story Who needs an iPhone FM radio anyway? http://www.daniweb.com/news/story231232.html Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:26:41 GMT Why so much fuss about the rumour (http://9to5mac.com/iPhone-fm-app) that Apple is developing an in house app to bring FM radio to the iPhone? Sure, the fact that (assuming the rumour is true) this will be a native application that can run in the background just like the iPod app does on an iPhone... Why so much fuss about the rumour that Apple is developing an in house app to bring FM radio to the iPhone? Sure, the fact that (assuming the rumour is true) this will be a native application that can run in the background just like the iPod app does on an iPhone is cool, but do we really need a FM radio on the iPhone? It's a valid enough question. Sure, the new iPod Nano has a radio and it adds a needed function, but the iPhone has apps. And, as any app lover will know, there are plenty of streaming radio apps already out there which bring all the radio functionality you could want, and then some.

Yes, I like the sound of integrating radio and iTunes Store so that you could get more info about a song playing and then go on to purchase it in just a click or two. But to be honest I prefer being able to stream that song through the likes of Last.FM or Spotify rather than having to buy it at all.

Yes, I like the idea of the live pause function, assuming that this carries over from the Nano into the iPhone app that is.

But I'm just not convinced that there is any real need for old technology such as FM radio on a next-generation device like the iPhone. It's almost as bizarre as having a Blu-ray player built into a top end HD TV which lets you play VHS tapes.

Maybe it's just a relatively simple thing to do, from the technology perspective, for Apple which will bring a nice but of publicity and no doubt get the media drooling over added features. The iPhone has been able to receive FM radio signals for a while, it is just not enabled as a radio application. The Nike+ fitness system uses the iPhone FM signal functionality to works its magic, for example.

So what do you think? Would you listen to FM radio on an iPhone or is it just a waste of time? ]]> Apple Hardware newsguy http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread231232.html Product Review CoPilot for iPhone - updated app reviewed in depth http://www.daniweb.com/reviews/thread230373.html Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:24:54 GMT CoPilot Live 8 Mobile Navigation on the iPhone has been a runaway success at the App Store, consistently keeping ahead of its TomTom rival in the 'top grossing' app charts at least in the UK Store. It arrived first and costs half as much as the TomTom app, but is it better?

If you had asked me that question a month ago then the answer would have been a resounding no. Extensive testing showed up huge problems in keeping a GPS lock and the app even refused to start half the time I wanted it to. But then, just as I was about to post a truly damning review, something happened: a brand new update appeared at the App Store, promising to fix the problems.

I've now driven nearly 1000 miles with CoPilot on the iPhone, and can report whether the promise has been fulfilled.

After much complaint, the truly awful CoPilot keyboard has been replaced by the app making use of the proper QWERTY iPhone keyboard instead. Although this might seem like a little thing to those of you who never used it, believe me the previous keyboard was a non-QWERTY atrocity that made any attempt at data entry (like inputting a destination address for example) into a time consuming, fiddly, nightmare of epic proportions. So well done to ALK for listening to its users and replacing that, it makes getting to a destination that little bit quicker and, really, isn't that the whole point of a satnav? Oh, and talking of little things that make a difference, you can now turn off those annoying 'beeps' when pressing any of the on-screen configuration buttons!

ALK has also updated the integration with the iPhone contacts book, and this does actually seem to work now. It had no trouble at all in finding every single one of my contacts when asked and plotting a route directly to them. Like the QWERTY keyboard, this improvement now puts CoPilot on an equal footing with arch-rival TomTom (see my TomTom for iPhone review here) as far as this functionality goes. CoPilot also now has the ability to properly and reliably recall your destination after you take an incoming phone call, something that TomTom has been doing well since the first release.

Unfortunately, although the update promises an "improved GPS performance in walking mode" as well as more general "GPS reliability improvements" I am afraid that my testing proved to be something of a hit and miss experience. For sure one area which has seen a major improvement, in fact changed beyond all recognition compared to my experience of CoPilot before the upgrade, is that of start up and time to locate. Beforehand, I would find myself finding something else to do while the app tried to get past the starting flash screen. Unless it was a cloudless day it would often actually refuse to go any further at all, one assumes because it was waiting to lock on to a GPS signal.

Now, however, not only does CoPilot start up very quickly indeed, and grab my location within a few seconds, but it can perform this trick indoors with the curtains closed. I am assuming that it gets a little help from the mobile network signal, but that is pure guesswork on my behalf.

On the road things are also vastly improved, with CoPilot now being able to accurately keep up with my movements (most of the time) and the stuttering performance of old has gone. I was impressed that the GPS now has no problems keeping a lock even in very bad weather conditions such as heavy rain and thick cloud.

So why the use of 'unfortunately' when I introduced the subject of GPS then? Well that comes back to the 'most of the time' reference just now. Where CoPilot let me down was when I was driving very slowly, you know, as you do when traffic is really heavy in town. If your speed drops down below 5 miles per hour then CoPilot assumes you have stopped and so the tracking pointer turns back into the annoying red puck and just sits there while you continue to slowly move forward.

Of course, this means that if you are in a long queue of slow moving traffic then CoPilot does not bother to tell you that you needed to take the next left because it thinks you are stationary.

But it seems this is not a bug, but a feature. Other users have complained about this behaviour and have been told that it is a deliberate 'dead reckoning system' designed so as not to spin the map when you are stationary at a traffic light. The position simply does not get updated if you are driving at less than 5 miles per hour.

Sorry, but I just don't get this. Mainly due to the fact that TomTom and other satnav systems manage to keep tabs on my position when I am stationary or crawling along and also manage to inform me that I need to turn even if I am moving at 4 miles per hour at the time. Guess what? I've never seen a satnav map spinning at traffic lights either!

Overall though, GPS performance was acceptable and managed to get me to my destinations. Eventually. Ah yes, which brings me to the mapping and route calculations bit. No matter which routing option I took, be that the quickest, the shortest or the most economic (nice feature that one, by the way) it steadfastly refused to take me on what I know to be the best route home from a number of locations.

To be brutally honest, some of the suggested routes were just downright bizarre. Either adding miles or minutes to a journey. Unlike the TomTom app with its IQ routes feature which, on the 1 out of 10 times tried taking me on an unintelligently routed journey, would get the hint pretty quickly and re-route me where I expected to be going, CoPilot just kept trying to get me to turn around and get back on the wrong route.

OK, I appreciate that a satnav is not intended to be used when you know where you are going and CoPilot certainly managed to get me where I wanted to go every time, but using one on known routes is a good measure of how the machine thinks during a review test and I have to say I was somewhat disappointed with CoPilot.

This disappointment was carried into usage despite the update notes telling me that a number of additional "stability/performance improvements" had been made. Perhaps I was not looking in the right places, but my application displayed some buggy behaviour such as the route progress bar sticking halfway and refusing to budge. I also saw this message more than once "Error: CoPilot failed to find a valid route to your destination" which surprised me as I had reached my destination at the time. It seems to be a bug associated with the display of the hugely annoying "would you like to return to your trip's origin' message that is shown when you arrive somewhere (why would I want to go back, I've literally only just arrived!) as this triggers the appearance of the FAIL message for me.

Please, don't get the impression that I hated everything about CoPilot on the iPhone, I really didn't. In fact there are some features which I really loved. The 'Live Services' which are starting to appear for example. At the time of testing I could get a live weather report for my local vicinity, at my destination or for any city I wanted to key in. The weather data, provided by AccuWeather.com, seemed to be pretty accurate whenever I looked at it. The roadside assistance button was also active, one click showing your location both in terms of address and lat/long coordinates (and a mapping display option) meaning that the emergency services or your recovery service will be able to find you without hassle. If you belong to the AA, even better, as there's a big 'call' button to enable one click access to the breakdown call centre. Oh, and the speed camera detection database is pretty good, giving a nice clear warning as you approach one.

There's no live traffic information yet though, but I am told that this will be available "via in-app purchase... towards the end of this month or early November". The App Store approval process is being blamed for there not being an exact date that this will become available, which is fair enough. I was unable to get any idea of pricing for the Live Traffic service before publication of this review. As soon as I know I will post the pricing as a comment.

The user interface was something of a mixed blessing as far as I was concerned. I like the big and easy to click buttons, dividing the screen into six squares. I like the destination setting options of address (including full seven digit postcode on the UK and Ireland maps I was using), points of interest, iPhone contact, intersection, coordinates (unlikely to ever use this but I guess it's nice to know it is there if I did need it) and finally the ability to pick somewhere right off a map. Oh, there's a favourites option in the 'My Places' section of course where you can allocate a home and work address to big buttons along with recent destinations and other favourite trips. Hitting the Quick Stop button lets you quickly find a petrol station, restaurant, hotel or garage for vehicle repair and hitting the Save Current Location buttons does just that.

What I don't like about the interface is the actual mapping screen itself. The lack of an auto-zooming feature means that it is not as easy to see where you are going compared to the TomTom application, and the information bar is far less informative no matter how you configure it. The bottom line, during hours of real-world driving on test here, is that the CoPilot screen just does not offer the same clarity on the move as the TomTom. The roads are rendered smaller by default and I don't want to be tapping zoom buttons on the move!

Some of the voice instructions could also be better with CoPilot. Case in point, one junction I use regularly is an offset crossroads if that makes sense, so you need to turn left and then immediately turn right. TomTom tells me to turn left and then turn sharp right, whereas CoPilot directs me to turn left and completely ignores the turn right bit. If I were following the route it would take me in the wrong direction and then have to route me back, a detour of more than a mile!

I must also mention battery life and heat while comparing the two iPhone satnav apps. Both are, naturally enough, huge consumers of your iPhone power resources and an in-car power adaptor is essential. However, while the TomTom cost me 45% of battery capacity (as reported by my iPhone 3GS itself) over the course of one hour driving, the CoPilot cost me 60% in the same time. When it comes to heat, the iPhone gets quite warm after TomTom has been doing its stuff for 15 minutes or so. For reasons I do not understand, it gets much warmer and you could even describe it as quite hot, when the CoPilot app is running for the same amount of time. This is a completely unscientific observation based upon how hot my ears felt when answering a phone call after using each app for the same period of time!

So, to sum up then, there's a lot to like about CoPilot Live 8 Mobile Navigation on the iPhone. Not least the stunning value for money that it represents when compared to TomTom which costs more than twice as much as CoPilot. The UK and Ireland application cost £59.99 for TomTom and yet just £24.99 for CoPilot.

But, despite this newly updated application being made available, it does still feel like something of a work in progress. There are bugs to be ironed out and some more tweaking required to the GPS functionality before I would be happy using it as my in-car satnav solution. At this point in time, of the two, it is TomTom I reach for the most when I have not got my standalone Satnav device with me. Neither are good enough yet for me to want to lose my dedicated in-car satnav though, thanks very much.

If I was giving it a rating out of 10, CoPilot for iPhone would currently be a 6.
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]]> Apple Hardware happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread230373.html IBook G4 Aluminum 17 inch will not boot up http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread229689.html Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:48:39 GMT I have an Ibook G4 that will not boot up. I bought it used and at first it would boot up with no video. Then I tried to zap the PRAM and once it turned off, it won't turn back on. I have tried every reset option with no luck.I know it is getting power because the bottom case is warm after it has been plugged up for a few minutes. Any ideas? Is it a logic board? ]]> Apple Hardware chloemorgan4unc http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread229689.html News Story The Myth of the Apple Fan Boy http://www.daniweb.com/news/story229385.html Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:32:37 GMT I have to say that I really hate the term "fan boy." It's usually used as a dismissive term to put down someone who speaks favorably of a product. It suggests that if you like a particular brand, it must mean that you blindly support everything that company does, and will come to its defense even when it's not warranted. The term is most often used with the word "Apple" in front of it, as in "oh, he's just an Apple Fan Boy."

If you speak positively about Apple products, it could be that they are often good, but it doesn't mean they're perfect. Nor does it mean you automatically defend every action of the corporation behind the brand. I use Apple products. I've got an iPhone, a Mac Book Pro and several iPods. I buy them because they are mostly well designed, they work very well and they look great. Yes, they're expensive, but in my 20 years of working with computers and gadgets, I would gladly pay for what I perceive as quality. That doesn't make me a "fan boy." It makes me a smart and reasoned consumer.

Definitely Not Flawless

All that said, it doesn't mean I don't go after Apple in this space when they deserve it because regular readers know that I do. I remember when I bought iPod Mini, having never used an iPod before, I sat there frustrated trying to figure out how to use it. Once I understood the elegance of the scroll wheel, I was hooked, but it was not apparent how to use it out of the box.

As someone who just performed a RAM upgrade on my Mac Book Pro, I would like to talk to the Apple engineers and ask them what they were thinking using five of the smallest screws I've ever seen to hold down a protective case over the RAM. I think two would have done it or maybe a thumb screw would have been nice. Instead, I had to use a Jeweler's screw driver to get the screws out. This was certainly not the most user-friendly approach I've ever seen.

That Famous Apple Arrogance

Let us not forget the famous Apple arrogance or the strange cult of personality that surrounds Apple Grand Poobah, Steve Jobs. Apple doesn't always plan right for obvious demand as happened with the release of iPhone 2.0. That they insist on giving AT&T exclusive rights to sell the iPhone remains baffling to me. They have taken away features users obviously still wanted like fire wire, and they have taken petty steps like blocking iTunes syncing on the Palm Pre. They have even sent out their lawyers to harass a small business.

But They Make Good Stuff

When it comes down to it though, I buy Apple products because they make good stuff most of the time. I couldn't care less if they are fashionable or cool. It doesn't mean Apple's a perfect company, far from it. It only means that what they do right, they do very, very well. There's no shame in reporting that, but it doesn't mean I'm going give to them a free pass for their foibles and screw-ups, nor does it mean I'm a mindless "fan boy," who doesn't consider all of the facts before making a purchase decision. ]]> Apple Hardware Techwriter10 http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread229385.html <![CDATA[17" Apple Studio Display LCD w/ OS 9 resolution]]> http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread228950.html Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:35:54 GMT A friend just gave me an Apple 17" LCD Studio Display. It doesn't have any controls on it, no buttons except power. It was bought with new with a Dual Core 1000MHz G4.

I don't have any software disks that may have come with it.

I use OSX 10.4.11 almost all the time, and I can set the resolution via the Displays System Preference panel - I get all the resolution display choices.

But I still use OS 9 for a few programs, and in OS 9.2.2 only the 1280 x 960 (maximum) resolution choice us available in the Monitors Control Pane or Control Strip. It's a bit small and I wish I could make it 1024 x 768.

Does anybody know if this is resolvable? ]]> Apple Hardware dintymoore http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread228950.html News Story Warning: Apple Hardware in Danger from the DOJ http://www.daniweb.com/news/story228668.html Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:50:12 GMT The Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating IBM's computer market conduct and, depending on the outcome, it might just affect your beloved Apple computers. As everyone knows, IBM is the major player in the mainframe computer market but now their business practice of not licensing other hardware makers to run their software is causing issue.

The following excerpt is from an article by Associated Press writer, Jordan Robertson:

Quote:
The accusations stem from claims by IBM rivals that they've been illegally frozen out of the mainframe market because of IBM's refusal to allow its mainframe operating software to run on non-IBM computers. IBM doesn't have many rivals anymore that make mainframe computers, but some smaller companies are trying to develop technologies that would allow the software to run on cheaper hardware.

They allege that IBM, which used to license its mainframe software to competitors and for the back half of the last century operated under an antitrust agreement with the government, stopped doing so in recent years to choke off competition.
It's possible that you don't realize the implications of these two paragraphs. Let me attempt to clarify them for you.

IBM created the mainframe software. It runs on IBM mainframes. IBM used to license it to other companies to run on their hardware. They stopped doing it. Now their competitors are upset by this practice.

Implication #1: If the DOJ finds against IBM, it essentially takes away IBM's right to innovate and compete in a market they created.

Implication #2: Apple is in a similar quandary, should the DOJ rule against IBM, in that Apple only licenses its operating system for its own hardware. Apple never sanctioned clones like IBM did in the PC market.

Implication #3: Apple clones will undermine Apple integrity and quality that's been their mainstay for all these years.

Implication #4: No company will ever be able to tie their operating system with hardware. For example, OS400 will have to be licensed for AS400 compatible hardware, mainframe zOS will have to be licensed for IBM mainframe compatible hardware, Solaris will have to be licensed to run on Sparc compatibles and the Mac OS will have to be licensed to run on Apple compatibles (aka Hacintoshes).

Implication #5: Cheap commodity hardware (read 'throw away') will dominate the world's data centers and become such a tragic loss for IBM, Sun (Oracle) and Apple that they each might release their software to the public as 'community' versions but still maintain their own proprietary branded software that runs specifically on their own hardware.

Not all bad, you say?

You haven't considered the real implication that summarizes all five of the others: If you can't innovate and outdo your competitors, why be in business at all? Why should Coke license Pepsi to pour Coke into Pepsi bottles? Why should Chevrolet license Ford to use Fisher bodies on their cars?

At one time, I believed that Apple should have licensed its operating system to run on clones but they were smart in not doing so. When you own an Apple product, you have Apple quality, Apple support and Apple service behind that product. If you have a clone, you have no Apple to assist you because clones can be made of anything.

I'm afraid of situations where innovation and quality are challenged. I don't want to trust mainframe operations to a clone. I don't want my niece to use an Apple clone in college. Too much depends on the integrity of both.

The DOJ hasn't ruled yet but I'm expecting the worst from them.

The only hope is that IBM and Apple would make those license purchases so prohibitively expensive that it would be pointless to purchase them without the proper hardware underneath.

What do you think? Should the DOJ take away IBM's right to innovate? Should they also take away the quality associated with the Mac or a Sun system? ]]> Apple Hardware khess http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread228668.html News Story iPhone monopoly lost in UK http://www.daniweb.com/news/story226306.html Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:29:38 GMT The iPhone's going to be sold by Orange in the UK as well as 02. I confess I was surprised at the announcement since I'd assumed 02 taking on the Palm Pre was as good as a statement that they no longer expected a monopoly on any other smartphone.

What's really interesting about this, though, is that it commoditises the iPhone in a way that wouldn't have been imaginable only a couple of years ago. More than one supplier selling the same bit of tin is going to mean the only way they can differentiate themselves, pretty quickly, will be on price.

This is where the whole debate becomes confused. iPhones sold on price? That's kind of OK because the technology is maturing, but then where's the incentive for the mobile company to sell them in the first place if there's no money to be made on them?

My guess is that Apple has realised, as it has in other territories already, that it's time to stop pretending the iPhone - neat though it is - is some sort of engineering miracle and start selling it as a phone again. This means going multi-channel, and it means more than one announcement is likely to be due; I have no 'in' here but I suspect Orange will be the first of a couple of iPhone announcements in the very near future.

This also means Apple will have to stop going on about iPhones as if they're the most exciting thing on the planet, ever, and find another product to excite everyone, just as it did when the iPod became a commodity.

My money is on a Mac tablet in January. ]]> Apple Hardware GuyClapperton http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread226306.html News Story iPhone battery issues http://www.daniweb.com/news/story224639.html Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:55:17 GMT Apple (http://www.apple.com) appears to be having battery issues again - it is reportedly asking iPhone 3Gs users to get in touch if their batteries are running down. This tells us a number of things. First, that there is a real problem. When a business the size of Apple decides to ask its... Apple appears to be having battery issues again - it is reportedly asking iPhone 3Gs users to get in touch if their batteries are running down.

This tells us a number of things. First, that there is a real problem. When a business the size of Apple decides to ask its customers what the problem is, there is definitely something up. Second, Apple has been caught out by this. Nobody was expecting it and it looks as though they can't duplicate the problem in the labs - otherwise why ask the customers?

One possible theory to account for why this has happened is that Apple has actually allowed its biggest selling point to overrun its best selling products: there are simply too many apps for the company to be able to manage how an iPhone does. What does the product actually do, for example? It's a phone, it's a GPS, it's a games console - it actually depends entirely on what you happen to have installed on it. And unlike previous generations of phones with a bit of gaming, bit of music and bit of other stuff, the extras are at the heart of the iPhone and its competitors, which actually do more stuff than my first computer did 16 years ago. If Apple has no control over people's usage of their device and the demands they make of it I'm not surprised power is an issue.

But then, when I had my first iPhone 15 months ago, before they started upgrading the OS, the power didn't last a full 24 hours without a recharge. I now carry it with a battery pack case the whole time, just in case. And it's not a 3Gs, it's an ordinary 3G.

Call me cynical, but it's just possible this has been a bit of a design niggle for longer than Apple wants to tell us. ]]> Apple Hardware GuyClapperton http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread224639.html News Story Can a Cosmic iPhone bring order to your life? http://www.daniweb.com/news/story224558.html Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:12:49 GMT It has long been affectionately known as the Jesus Phone (http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/daveyw/2008/08/28/jesus-phone-does-not-perform-miracles/) because of the almost religious following it receives, but can the iPhone really harness the power of the Cosmos to help organise your life? Veteran TV... It has long been affectionately known as the Jesus Phone because of the almost religious following it receives, but can the iPhone really harness the power of the Cosmos to help organise your life? Veteran TV presenter Noel Edmonds, he of Deal or No Deal, Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old and Noel's Christmas Presents fame reckons it can.

Indeed, Edmonds already created something of a fuss about the new age concept of Cosmic Ordering after taking to drawing different symbols on his hand for each show in the Deal or No Deal TV programme. The show became hugely popular here in the UK, catapulting the former-star back into the media limelight after having been largely off the small screen for some years. There was plenty of speculation about the images drawn on his hands, but they were eventually revealed to be part of the whole Cosmic Ordering thing which seems to involve making requests of the Cosmos which are then granted for those who adopt a positive attitude to life.

Positive Apps, the developers of the Noel Edmonds' Cosmic Ordering iPhone App, are keen to point out that "Cosmic Ordering is not a whacky form of prayer" and that they cannot "actually prove that it exists" however they also insist that it "can change your life forever".

Noel Edmonds says, in the blurb for the software at the iPhone App Store, that "Cosmic Ordering has over the past 4 years brought me a fresh, exciting lifestyle full of love, laughter, happiness and success." Not quite sure what he was ordering from the Cosmos two years ago, then, when it was reported that Edmonds was believed to have lost a small fortune as a result of the collapse of his Unique Group business. This was the company that owned the intellectual property rights to perhaps the best known of the Noel Edmonds creations, Mr Blobby.

Anyway, allowing for that apparent blip in the cosmic order of things, what do you get for the £1.19 ($1.92) that the iPhone app costs? I bit the cosmic bullet, dipped into my cosmic wallet and downloaded it to find out. While I was waiting for it to install I read some of the instructions, which seem to revolve around the fact that the Cosmos will not deliver upon your life requests unless you set yourself clear goals, open your mind, body and soul to life's opportunities and "most importantly of all" believe in yourself and your own abilities.

Right, so plenty of get out clauses when it doesn't actually work then. Looks like it will be all my own fault. Sweet. Microsoft should try that one.

The first thing you notice, and you really cannot escape it, is the fact that Noel Edmonds is big in Cosmic Ordering: so big his face fills the entire iPhone screen when you launch the app. I could have done without that, to be honest. Hit the big ? button on the toolbar and you get more Noel, explaining in a video how Cosmic Ordering can change your life. I am starting to wonder if I have actually just bought a Noel Edmonds PR application by mistake here. Ah, hit the 'manage' button and you get the chance to 'Make a Cosmic Order' which I do against a pink and blue background of stars and suchlike. Not being too greedy, I opt for winning the UK National Lottery this Wednesday when the jackpot will be much smaller than either the Saturday draw or the Euro Lottery draw on Friday. Hitting the button to launch my order it vanishes in a star-field screensaver effect, complete with Disney fairy twinkling sounds. I'm not sure if this is important to make it work or not.

So what else does it do? Actually, not a lot. I can sort my orders by category such as health, wealth, happiness etc. I can flag them as being completed, although obviously I will have to wait until Wednesday night for confirmation of my lottery win.

Ah, the penny drops: I've bought a Cosmic ToDo list with pink and blue stars, twinkly sound effects and a video of Noel Edmonds. If you do believe in this stuff, save yourself a quid and just use any free ToDo list app on the iPhone and you'll surely still achieve the same results?

If there was any justice in the Cosmos, Apple would have approved the Google Voice app and the South Park app. Maybe I should send a Cosmic Order requesting approval for those two much more deserving apps, and another for a full refund, before I delete this one from my iPhone? ]]> Apple Hardware happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread224558.html <![CDATA[News Story Maybe Apple's Onto Something with the FM Radio]]> http://www.daniweb.com/news/story223257.html Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:04:45 GMT With the September 9th Keynote in our rear view mirror, we can begin to look back at it with a more unbiased eye, and explore some of the new features more clearly. It's obvious by now that this wasn't in any way a major announcement. This was exacerbated by the tantalizing rumors that floated all about prior to the Keynote (as I wrote in Apple Rumor Mill Comes Up Empty Again). But one new feature that slipped under the radar a bit was the announcement that for the first time, Apple was including an FM Radio in the Nano line.

"BFD," I hear you say, "so it has a radio. Whooptydoo," which is to be honest, is what I thought until a conversation convinced me that perhaps Apple is onto something a bit deeper.

Buying Songs From The Radio

I was having a casual GTalk conversation with my publisher at FierceContentManagement, Ron Lichtinger, when he pointed out there might be more to this FM Radio than meets the eye. In particular, he suggested, "Being able to buy songs instantly from the radio and storing it on your iPod is pretty darn cool – satellite radio has been doing it for a while, but that’s satellite radio. FM (and High Def) radio are free, but now, you’ll be able to tag and then pay for songs (through iTunes of course) as you’re listening to them." And that's when it hit me that including the FM radio was actually another smart move from Apple

What this does is take the same marketing scheme recording companies have used since the advent of radio, and gives it a new digital twist. Instead of hearing the song on the radio a few times and thinking, 'I really like that. I should get in my car and go to my brick and mortar shop, or buy it the next time I'm in iTunes,' you could potentially click a link and buy it instantly in iTunes. Are you a big fan? Maybe they could try to upsell you to the album, or if you're a really big fan, the Deluxe Album (with extras like unreleased tracks which I wrote about in Apple Brings the Digital Album to iTunes).

Keep Feeding that Cash Cow

This could potentially mean more revenue for the iTunes store of course, which in turn could provide additional revenue for the sagging recording industry at the same time. "With the amount of people that buy iPods, that could be a lot of potential revenue for a beleaguered media format," Lichtinger says. He's right of course. It opens up a potentially large revenue stream where none existed before and it didn't require a huge technological leap for Apple to do it.

The new Deluxe Albums and the FM radio provide a couple of new sources of revenue for the iTunes Store, which has always been a cash cow for Apple. The FM radio, which seemed like a throw-in at first glance, could be so much more than that. Now if they could only put a camera on the Touch and everyone would be happy. ]]> Apple Hardware Techwriter10 http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread223257.html upgrade G4 Mac mini hard drive http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread222946.html Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:34:18 GMT Hi I have inherited a G4 Mac mini with 40gb hard drive which I want to upgrade to 160gb. I do not have the original Tiger install DVDs and I am using it with a windows keyboard and mouse for the moment. I have created a bootable backup of the current hard drive using Super Duper and have saved it... Hi I have inherited a G4 Mac mini with 40gb hard drive which I want to upgrade to 160gb. I do not have the original Tiger install DVDs and I am using it with a windows keyboard and mouse for the moment. I have created a bootable backup of the current hard drive using Super Duper and have saved it on an external USB drive, I have installed the new 160gb hard drive and would like to boot from the external drive and reinstall what was on the old drive onto the new drive. Is this possible? If not how can I install the new hard drive without the original DVDs or a firewire external drive? Thanks, Richard ]]> Apple Hardware richardspain http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread222946.html News Story Apple Rumor Mill Comes Up Empty Again http://www.daniweb.com/news/story222104.html Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:00:51 GMT Yesterday was Apple's Keynote, and you would think we would have learned by now that Apple rumors are meaningless. As the buzz grows louder before each of these events, there are rumors so convincing we think they must be a fait accompli. I mean how many of you thought you would wake up this morning to find the iPod Touch still doesn't have a camera? Not many, I'm sure and even fewer hands would go up if you suggested the *Nano* would have one. Yet each keynote, we still believe.

Remember the last one? Sure you do. There was a rumor about the $800 Mac Book. It was so solid it was sure to happen, only it didn't. And the Tablet, that one surfaced this year too, yet there was no Tablet. Why do we fall for it every time? It must be that we want to believe.

What Happened to that Camera?

If we were sure of anything prior to yesterday's Keynote, it was that the Touch would have a camera. What we got was pretty good: a price cut, more power; but we wanted a camera, dammit and we didn't get one. I for one am completely shocked, but not nearly so much as the fact that Nano was given one (along with a pedometer and FM radio). Steve Jobs likes to keep us guessing and this one came out of left field. No iPod has ever had an FM transmitter before (or a pedometer for that matter, a neat but frivolous feature).

The Touch deserved this feature. It's worked hard to be a good solider in the iPod line and Jobs gave it to the Nano?! What a slap in the face that was. Rumor has it (if you still believe Apple rumors) that the Touch is so devastated by this decision that it's in hiding and refusing to see anyone. Consumers who fully expected a camera on our Touch this morning feel the same way.

As for That Tablet

Then there's the Tablet. You know the one. People were actually describing this thing and pricing it. It felt so real, and yet once again the rug was pulled out from under us. Alas, there was no Tablet and we were left empty and wondering why Apple would treat us so badly. And there are clearly people who want to buy this lovely bit of vaporware (can hardware be vaporware too?). A market salivating for a product that doesn't exist (at least not yet). Why would Apple do that? Maybe it just wasn't ready for prime time. Perhaps next time.

The Beatles-iTunes thing didn't happen either, a minor disappointment compared to the other items that were rumored yet never materialized. Sure, what they announced wasn't bad, but the Apple rumor mill is so strong and so convincing, it's hard not to be disappointed by what got left out, even if Apple took no part in generating these rumors.

For now, we are left to sit and wait until the next Keynote when you can be sure we will play this same game all over again. And we will still believe. You know we will. ]]> Apple Hardware Techwriter10 http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread222104.html G4 hard drive upgrade http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread222084.html Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:44:40 GMT I have a PowerMac G4 867 Quicksilver tower, 80G internal hard drive, running 10.3.9, and would like to upgrade to a larger drive. I read that officially, internal drives larger than 128 G are not supported. Is this true, or is there a work around that would allow a drive larger than 128 G? Thanks. I have a PowerMac G4 867 Quicksilver tower, 80G internal hard drive, running 10.3.9, and would like to upgrade to a larger drive. I read that officially, internal drives larger than 128 G are not supported. Is this true, or is there a work around that would allow a drive larger than 128 G? Thanks. ]]> Apple Hardware Doc B http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread222084.html News Story Is this another service pack I see before me? http://www.daniweb.com/news/story221990.html Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:47:49 GMT Apple has launched new additions to its iPod range and improved two of its working environments, iPhone 3.1 software is out, and joined by a new version of the iTunes store.

Only...there isn't much new in any of this. Let's take a look at the iTunes store first. You can now buy music in 'LP' versions, with extra features like little video documentaries. Well, forgive me for saying so but as far as I can see the company's been selling video for quite a while now. Adding the two together isn't new or revolutionary, and neither is adding art (I've had 'digital booklets' with downloads years ago). Yes it's a bit prettier and easier to navigate than before, but it's a bit like rearranging furniture. Convenient but not essential.

Likewise sticking a video camera on the back of an iPod. Apple makes a big thing of this and woo-hoo, so do many Apple fans. Steve Jobs himself made quite a thing of how they've been watching the Flip Video space.

This got me excited briefly I have to admit, because Flip has an HD model. High definition from something that small was...well, wasn't going to happen because it's not what was announced, this is ordinary if serviceable VGA quality video. Which is fine, but not something with any particular zap. The iPod Nanos remain serviceable and elegant and yes, there are some new colours, but that's about it.

And then there's the iPhone software upgrade. Apple fans will hate this but I've upgraded, had a look at the phone and - call me an idiot if you want - I can't see the difference. Apple says it synchronises better than it did, and it might well - as always, Apple, thanks for fixing a problem I didn't know I had. It was already working fine.

None of this would matter for any other company but Apple has built itself a reputation for making the next big thing. People were (ill-advisedly) expecting the announcement that the Beatles were available for legitimate download (on the day they released their remastered catalogue at great expense, yeah, that was going to happen!) or the long-rumoured Apple Tablet. Instead, the announcements following the distinctly dull Snow Leopard upgrade weren't actually much of an event.

There is nothing wrong with streamlining a Web design, adding an ordinary camera, all those things. But doing so with such a big event and jamboree about it is going to make Apple's events a laughing stock unless they have something substantial to announce next time. ]]> Apple Hardware GuyClapperton http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread221990.html News Story Apple Brings the Digital Album to iTunes http://www.daniweb.com/news/story221797.html Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:54:05 GMT Apple introduced a new feature today that lets you buy an album from iTunes complete with extra material like bonus recordings, video footage, lyrics and more. This is the kind of package I was suggesting the record companies need to bring to CDs a couple of weeks ago in my post Record Companies... Apple introduced a new feature today that lets you buy an album from iTunes complete with extra material like bonus recordings, video footage, lyrics and more. This is the kind of package I was suggesting the record companies need to bring to CDs a couple of weeks ago in my post Record Companies Must Stop Being Stupid to Salvage CD Sales. By supplying these types of bonuses, Apple is luring the true fans to buy not just one or two great songs, but an entire package of music and multimedia in a move that should not only boost iTunes sales, but also salvages the idea of the complete album for a new generation of listeners.

One and Done

I know I probably sound old when I say it, but most albums these days only have one or two tracks worth buying, which is probably why young people have been conditioned to buy the couple of songs they like, rather than the whole package. Back in the day, we bought a vinyl album and we listened to the whole thing. As part of that experience, we learned to like the other tracks. And it turned out, they often were well worth listening to. Later the CD enabled us to skip tracks we didn't like, and a remote made that dead simple.

Digital Age

With the advent of iTunes, the idea of a whole package of music went out the window. People bought the songs they liked, made playlists of these individual tunes and packed them on the iPod to take on their way. The idea that an artist could tell a musical story disappeared. In the old days, artists like Bruce Springsteen and Kurt Cobain would agonize over the order of the tracks. They wanted the perfect transition, just the right flow to tell a musical story, but digital music took that control away from the artist. Listeners could reorder tracks themselves if they wished.

Enter the Digital Album

Today, Steve Jobs brought the album back. One example is Bob Dylans' classic Highway 61 Revisited (Deluxe Version) which gives you all of the great tracks that came on the original including Like A Rolling Stone, Tombstone Blues and Ballad of a Thin Man, but also provides 13 bonus tracks from the original sessions and some live footage from the Newport Folk Festival. For Dylan fans (and you can count me among them), this is an amazing opportunity to listen to and see some rare material. Jobs has taken the digital buying experience to another level with this concept, and at the same time probably banged another nail into the CD's coffin.

This approach to me is pure genius and it's the reason why Jobs has a reputation of a man on a mission. Even after all these years, and a year of illness, he and the organization he heads continues to think and innovate and the Digital Album is just further proof of their ability to do this. ]]> Apple Hardware Techwriter10 http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread221797.html different types of applicatons n Iphone http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread215928.html Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:52:36 GMT anyone please explain me what is productive application and immersive application.. Thanks and regrards dhanya anyone please explain me what is productive application and immersive application..
Thanks and regrards
dhanya ]]> Apple Hardware dhanya_piit http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread215928.html Product Review TomTom for iPhone http://www.daniweb.com/reviews/thread220785.html Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:30:53 GMT I drive hundreds of miles every week, I write about technology for a living, I've been a TomTom user for years and I own an iPhone. It had to be done, I just had to review the TomTom satnav app for the iPhone.

Being both an iPhone 3GS owner and a happy TomTom satnav in-car user, like many people I had been waiting for the iPhone TomTom application to arrive. The delays seemed to go on forever, and in the meantime other players had entered the market: both Navigon MobileNavigator and ALK CoPilot Live launched before TomTom got into the App Store. But first is not always best, and as TomTom is pretty much the undisputed market leader I decided to hold out and wait for it to finally arrive. Not that it has finally arrived as I was hoping, by which I mean that the software application itself is now in the iPhone App Store for download but the hardware side of the product has yet to be released to retailers. I asked TomTom about this lack of the car kit at the moment, and a spokesperson told me it is "in the process of fine-tuning it so it lives up to the standards and quality we set for our products, and plan to announce the availability and pricing later this summer." Apparently a commercial decision was taken to make the software available despite the car kit not being ready just yet. "Although using the two together will certainly optimise the experience" TomTom says "they work as standalone solutions" so I thought I would put that claim to the test.

Not just the 'I've had the thing for 30 minutes and I'm now ready to review it' which often appears in the rush to be first on the web to have a review of a new product, but a the kind of real world review you can only get by listening to someone who has actually used the product being reviewed and used it over an extended period. In the case of TomTom for iPhone I have been using it every day since it became available, which means the best part of two weeks now. I've used it when driving well known local routes, and I've used it when driving halfway across the country without a clue where I am going other than the address I have been given. Along the way I have uncovered just how well this particular satnav solution performs in terms of routing, display, GPS signal lock, speed and battery life as well as being able to compare it to my dedicated in-car TomTom satnav device.

Just for the record, this review is based upon TomTom for iPhone UK and Ireland edition installed on an iPhone 3GS. The in-car testing was done using a Nissan X-Trail.

OK, so let's start at the beginning with the cost. TomTom is clearly positioning itself towards the premium end of the iPhone satnav market. Of the big three products available at the time of writing, TomTom (UK and Ireland) is the most expensive at £59.99 (US $98) ahead of Navigon MobileNavigator which costs £52.99 (US $86) for the UK edition and the undoubted bargain of the bunch ALK CoPilot Live which comes in at just £25.99 (US $42) for the UK maps. Although there is still no sign of confirmed pricing for the TomTom in-car kit, we did break the news recently that one online retailer had been spotted taking pre-orders at £113.85 ($193.75) which works out to £99 ($168.50) plus tax, for the car kit. TomTom's official stance on this remains "As we have not confirmed pricing for the iPhone app, we are unsure why this website is quoting that price." Whatever the end price, it will only help confirm the TomTom solution as being a premium priced product, so does it deliver in terms of performance?

There have been quite a few complaints within the App Store customer reviews regarding poor GPS reception, with some claiming to be unable to get a lock at all while others maintain that the application would always be stumbling around a few yards behind the actual position of the car - not ideal if it tells you to turn left after you have driven past the street in question. Equally, the GPS complainers recount how rerouting is painfully slow. Some even state that this is in stark contrast to applications such as Google Maps which get a GPS lock on the same iPhone without fuss and hang on to it accordingly. I am not suggesting that their experiences are not real, but I can only review the product as I personally found it: and I found it to not only lock onto a GPS signal very quickly indeed (a matter of a few seconds) but hang on to that signal no matter where I drove. I live in a pretty rural location but TomTom for iPhone always knew where I was, just as it did when I ventured into built up areas including large cities complete with tall buildings. Quite simply, the GPS signal never let me down once and that included a mammoth 5 hour cross-country drive with just a couple of stops to answer the call of nature and grab a coffee.

Now this GPS performance surprised me, and I will explain why. For a start, I did not expect an in-car native iPhone GPS signal to be much cop, to be honest. Especially as one of the main selling points of the in-car kit that TomTom assures me will be available before the end of the Summer (it had better hurry up as Summer is fading fast here in the UK) is a built-in SiRF Star III GSC3f/LPx 7989 GPS chipset and antenna for enhanced GPS performance. You would have thought that was the kind of price boosting component that would only be included if the iPhone hardware was inadequate. Yet there I was, driving around with a rock-solid GPS signal with my iPhone not placed on the dashboard or windscreen, in fact with no clear view of the sky at all! I had the iPhone sitting on a bean bag inside the dashtop glovebox on front of the driver in the X-Trail, with the box lid resting down on the top of the landscape iPhone to keep the sun off. Yet it managed to lock on and retain a good enough GPS signal to ensure it always knew where I was, without any obvious lagging behind my actual position, and even re-route in the blink of an eye when I deliberately went off the planned route.

To say I have been impressed by this performance is an understatement. I was equally impressed by the mapping and routing, allowing for the fact that I have yet to find any satnav which gets things 100% right 100% of the time. Full seven digit postcode input is supported, or you can use the usual array of streets, maps, points of interest etc to plan a route. TomTom for iPhone uses the latest TeleAtlas maps just like the dedicated in-car products it sells, and they come complete with TomTom IQ routing technology. This basically calculates the quickest routes based upon the time and day of the journey, drawing upon the experience of millions of TomTom users who have driven those roads before you. It manages to base your route calculation upon the actual speeds of those drivers compare to speed limits, and manages to get it right most every time in terms of the most efficient route taking into account distance and speed. As I've already mentioned, go off route and the automatic rerouting kicks in. I found this to be very quick, in fact comparable to the standalone in-car TomTom solutions. But perhaps most importantly the maps on the iPhone, which I kept in landscape mode during my drives, were clear and precise. They scrolled very smoothly, zooming automatically, and were accompanied by a nice loud voice of my choosing to call out the turn by turn instructions. Unfortunately these were of the turn left, turn right variety instead of calling the road names. Equally unfortunately, the TomTom for iPhone interface is missing the hugely useful (especially when you drive as many motorway miles as I do) advanced lane change guidance which shows you exactly where you should be when motorways merge or junctions approach.

The biggest omission from the maps side of things, though, has to be the double whammy of no mapshare support at this time and no TomTom LIVE services. This means that without mapshare support you cannot report when the maps have got it wrong (road is one way, doesn't exist or whatever) and upload that information so that the whole TomTom driving community can benefit by having their maps and routes updated. Quite incredibly though, given that the iPhone is a smartphone and that data is at the heart of the beast, the lack of LIVE service support means there are no traffic reports so no routing around the jams. I can understand the lack of data support for the iPhone when using a standalone TomTom satnav, that's more to do with Apple than it is TomTom after all. But given that the application is running on the device itself, I can see no reason why data integration should not have been available from launch. I can only assume that it will be added on later as an upgrade, no doubt at additional cost but then again LIVE services carry a subscription fee for in-car products so that should not come as any real surprise. You do get a freebie in the form of built-in speed camera alerts on TomTom iPhone which was a nice surprise.

Talking of no surprises, I was a little taken aback to see people complaining that the iPhone battery was being drained quickly by TomTom, as if that was not going to happen with something that is pushing the iPhone to the limits in terms of the hardware being used. I would not dream of using an in-car satnav of any kind on battery power, to be fair, and the iPhone should be treated no differently. Just for the purposes of review, however, I did unplug it from my cigar lighter adapter to record the rate of battery depletion. I guess the best word to sum it up is fast. I lost 45% of battery capacity in 1 hour of usage. No surprise there then.

I was kind of expecting a poor performance when it came to contacts integration, the ability to tap on one of your iPhone contacts and be routed right to them, given the poor performance experienced by some App Store reviewers. But again, it was like I was using a different product to them as not a single one of my contacts threw up the dreaded cannot recognise address format message some report seeing all the time, it just routed me straight to the right address. The Points of Interest, although not supporting user editing at the moment, are well integrated with the iPhone. By which I mean that it is nice to be able to not only route to a POI by way of it being near to your current location, in a city, near your home, near the destination or along the route, but also to be able to place a phone call to those POIs using the same criteria. Talking of phone calls, all is not rosy in the telephony integration garden although you cannot blame TomTom for this one. If you get an incoming call while driving a route, you have a choice to make: accept the call and lose the routing for the duration, or decline the call. The iPhone cannot run multiple applications at the same time, so you will see an accept/decline screen when an incoming call is received and if you decline that's it, no interruption. Accept the call and you fall out of the satnav application until you hang up, then it restarts and dumps you back into the route you were on before. Obviously, as you have been moving there will then be a slight delay while the GPS gets a lock again and puts you back on the right bit of the route. This is annoying, if you take a lot of calls when driving. Personally it's not a problem as I very rarely accept calls when on the move, preferring to concentrate on the task of getting from A to B without killing anyone, so no biggie. If you'll excuse the pun, your mileage may differ.

So, do I think it is worth the money? Ultimately yes, even though it is currently missing some bits that I would want before I will switch from standalone TomTom satnav to the all in one iPhone solution. Those bits being the in-car kit, mapshare support, LIVE services for traffic avoidance and the advanced lane change advice. Once they arrive this will be so good that, dare I say it, we could be looking at the start of the end for dedicated in-car satnav units. When phone-based navigation is this good, why bother with anything else?

If I was giving it a rating out of 10, TomTom for iPhone would currently be an 8.
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]]> Apple Hardware happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220785.html News Story Has Linux Fallen into a Well? http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220784.html Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:18:31 GMT Does it seem to you that Linux distributions have fallen into to a well or other deep support chasm that defies the space-time continuum? It seems so to me. Linux distributions are lagging behind Windows and Mac in significant ways.
Well, it doesn't work for this chipset. Well, it works but you have to tweak it. Well, it works but...is the common theme for many Linux installations. This generates frustrations for users old and new. It's hard to convince someone to use Linux when it's even hard for me to do something that would be impossible for a newbie.

For example, yesterday I had heard enough complaints from my kids about their shared Windows XP laptop's slowness, unresponsiveness and general lack of pep. I summoned them all from their caves (Rooms with TVs) and told them to save off their valuable documents, songs and other files of interest to a flash drive because I am going to reimage the laptop. They complied. I planned to reimage it with Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop. There began my problems that appeared to remain unresolved until I put Windows XP back on it.

Don't fret, I went ahead with the installation of Ubuntu 9.04.

The installation went fine. The updating via apt-get went swimmingly. Sound, wired networking, video--everything was just perfect--until I tried to use the wireless networking, that is. The kids have to use wireless because the only wired connections are in my office and I don't want them in that close proximity to me for extended periods of time. I have to work, after all.

Much to my disappointment, though, my built-in Broadcom wireless network adapter wasn't supported by default. Why does it seem like that Linux supports everything except what I have? This is why, as I told a friend of mine, Linux will never unseat Windows as the reigning desktop computer dominant force. Never.

Oh, don't think for a minute that I'm turning my back on Linux--I'm not. Quite the opposite, in fact, since it would be so much easier to simply reimage the laptop with Windows XP from the rescue disks.

It does seem though that I wrestle with configurations for laptops, desktops and sometimes servers when using Linux but I've never given up on it. I likely never will. It would be nice, however, if everything just worked right out of the box like it's supposed to--at least once in a while.

And, no, I don't check the hardware compatibility list prior to purchase. If I did, I might not have any hardware at all. I buy what's available without regard for compatibility because I know that mass-produced hardware will have support--or should.

Like many of you, when I install Linux for someone else, I'd like for it to just 'work' without any problems so that they can see how awesome it is. Now, my kids are wondering if it was really worth all the trouble. 15 minutes to install and 15 hours to troubleshoot is not a good showing for a basic service like wireless networking.

Late-breaking Update: Fortunately, just a while ago, I found this fix that worked for me. Now the kids have a fully functional laptop that runs like one with much more RAM and a more powerful CPU.
I'll update you on their adoption of Linux. Who knows, this could be the beginning of a whole new era of posts generated from the experiences of the cave dwellers in my house. ]]> Apple Hardware khess http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220784.html News Story Apple Could Be Looking for New iPhone Partners in 2010 http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220783.html Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:09:56 GMT Apple Insider reports this morning that Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is predicting that Apple will end its exclusive agreement with AT&T by next summer. This rumor has been out there for some time (as I wrote back in June in Is Apple Getting Ready to Dump AT&T?). The exclusivity agreement never really made sense to me, but as the market matures, it makes even less.

Look at RIM

If you want an example of a handset maker that has thrived with a multiple carrier strategy, look no further than RIM. Today, in the US, you can buy multiple flavors of the Blackberry including the Storm, the Flip, the Bold, The Curve or the Tour. Each carrier has its own particular flavors. For instance, AT&T has the Blackberry Curve 8320, while Verizon has the Curve 8330. They are essentially the same phone, tuned for each carrier's network? Could Apple do something similar?

The Multiple Carrier Strategy Works

Munster points out that Apple has already experimented with a multiple carrier approach in France and found it worked to increase their market share. I've found carrier choice is based mostly on how good the coverage is in your area. In my home, for instance, I've found that I can't get a good Verizon signal, so I'm inclined to stick with AT&T.

I have friends who pine for an iPhone, but are tied to another carrier because of a family plan with different contract expiration dates (or for reasons like mine), but if the iPhone were offered by multiple carries, these folks have reported they would definitely take the plunge. This would likely mean an increase in market share since these folks are essentially tied to a particular carrier that's not AT&T.

Not All Wine and Roses for AT&T

As I wrote in AT&T's Love-Hate Relationship with Apple, it turns out that AT&T takes a big hit for subsidizing the iPhones, at least up front, but they most definitely make it back: As I wrote:

Quote:
As Renee Ritchie reports in the iPhone Blog, [monthly iPhone] data fees added up to hefty $3.4b in data revenues for the quarter. Yet even with that and selling and activating 2.4 million iPhones in the quarter, AT&T still managed to record a 15 percent year over year loss because they had to eat a bunch of money on those iPhone sales. Tough to swallow? Perhaps in the short-term, but in the big picture, AT&T knows that very soon the money spigot will be wide open and they will make that money back and then some.
In fact, the iPhone has been very, very good to AT&T, so much so Apple Insider says that AT&T is lobbying for one more year of exclusivity.

I'm with Munster on this one though. I'm betting they don't get it. As George Harrison once wrote, "all things must pass," and while the exclusive deal might have worked for the initial launch, the time has come for Apple to diversify across multiple carriers. ]]> Apple Hardware Techwriter10 http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220783.html News Story Good Apple, Rotten Apple http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220774.html Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:42:15 GMT It certainly has been a roller coast ride of a month for Apple, and it continued this week with news they had allowed an iTunes competitor, Spotify (http://spotify.com/), to place an app in the App Store surprising many industry pundits who believed they would reject it. Meanwhile, earlier this... It certainly has been a roller coast ride of a month for Apple, and it continued this week with news they had allowed an iTunes competitor, Spotify, to place an app in the App Store surprising many industry pundits who believed they would reject it. Meanwhile, earlier this week Apple showed its petty side by issuing a take-down notice on Tuesday to UK IT publisher, The Register for posting a review of Snow Leopard, the new Apple OS in violation of what Apple lawyers called "confidential trade secrets."

That would have been more than enough for the entire month, but they've dealt with rumors of a possible Tablet, lawsuits, an FCC investigation and oh yes, they released a new version of that Snow Leopard OS this morning (Am I the only one who mixes up versions because they are all feline names?). This month has shown Apple is a complex organization, perhaps more so than we had previously thought.

First, The Good News

PaidContent.org reports that Apple has approved an iPhone App from Spotify. This is significant because Spotify is an online music service that at least has the potential to compete with a core iPhone application, iTunes (which is also a significant revenue source for Apple). This probably has less to do with altruism on Apple's part, so much as fear of an anti-trust or anti-competitive action by the government. As previously reported, Apple is already under investigation by the FCC for allegedly blocking the Google Voice app from the App store. Apple could very well be simply responding to the pressure this investigation has brought to bear on the App Store application approval process.

Then The Bad News

Apple has show it can be quite petty (as I wrote about in Apple Sinks to Blocking Pre Sync) and this side of the company was on full display this week when it issued a take-down notice to UK technology publisher, The Register, which to their credit was not intimidated by the considerable clout of the Apple legal team. The publication rightly pointed out the abject hypocrisy of the move when other publications published their own reviews just a day later. John Lattice wrote in a Register article:

Quote:
"This morning you may also have noted a rush of first looks at Snow Leopard in other publications, from Wired, MacWorld and the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg. Snow Leopard is out tomorrow, not today, but we suspect that Uncle Walt et al will not be hearing from O'Melveny & Myers LLP, and we have our doubts about whether we'll be hearing from them again either."
Another strange week in month full of bizarre tales from Cupertino. Perhaps the upcoming media event on September 9th will dazzle us anew and make us forget about all the front-page bad news coming Apple in August. New iPods with cool features could do a lot to turn the news around and back in Apple's favor. ]]> Apple Hardware Techwriter10 http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220774.html News Story An iPhone in the bedroom http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220771.html Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:36:44 GMT What do you wake up to? An old-fashioned alarm clock with small hammer and large bells atop a round clockface? Maybe a clock-radio or perhaps a straightforward digital alarm with a loud beep-beep-beep to get you moving of a morning? If you do, then you are in the minority as more and more of us... What do you wake up to? An old-fashioned alarm clock with small hammer and large bells atop a round clockface? Maybe a clock-radio or perhaps a straightforward digital alarm with a loud beep-beep-beep to get you moving of a morning? If you do, then you are in the minority as more and more of us apparently wake up to our mobile phones.

According to one new survey which questioned 1500 people regarding their morning bedroom routine, more than half used their mobile phones as alarm clocks.

One leading horologist and fellow of the British Horological Institute told the Daily Mail newspaper that the trend has already been seen with people using mobiles instead of wristwatches, and how it signals modern technology replacing mechanical things.

So what else is the mobile phone replacing? Well the same survey, unsurprisingly conducted for a mobile phone retailer, suggests that 20% of us use them to access the Internet, take photos, organise business schedules and keep on top of social networking.

I have to admit that it never actually occurred to me that I had replaced my alarm clock with an iPhone, but I have. In fact I have not used a 'proper' alarm clock since I first took delivery of the iPhone, it sits on my bedside cabinet acting as a handy one-tap illuminated clock for those middle of the night stumbles to the loo, and as a very effective alarm clock in the morning. I hate to sound like one of those annoying 'have you seen what my iPhone can do' types, but it really is starting to live up to that reputation. My iPhone is my alarm clock, calendar, mobile web browser, email client, portable games machine and even satnav. I have even been known to make a telephone call with it every now and then. ]]> Apple Hardware happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220771.html News Story If I Were Designing An Apple iPad... http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220766.html Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:02:05 GMT Apple is looking more and more likely to be releasing a tablet computer either later this year or early next. I won't bore you with all the references online, there are too many. So, purely from my head, here is my wish list for what the device will actually be like.

1. Affordable. Yes I know this is Apple and they don't always seem to understand the word, but this recession is looking serious. We. Don't. Need. Expensive. Trinkets.

2. A killer application. I don't know what form this would take but the problem with previous tablet launches has, for me, been that there's no compelling reason to buy them. Give me one and I'll think about it.

3. A neat but not ostentatious design. No, look, Apple's great at designing very pretty kit indeed but with something like this I don't want to get mugged.

4. A pleasant experience with an e-book or even e-comic-book reader. I've had a look at the competition and they're all kind of OK. Apple needs to make it easy and pleasant to read using this machine - the same trick it pulled off to make the iPod so much more fun than the competition, even if it used incompatible formats at first. This - without the incompatibilities - needs to happen with the device I'm calling an iPad.

5. An optional and preferably wireless keyboard add-on. What, you think I'm buying this *and* a laptop?

6. Options to share multiple headphones. So the kids are in the back of the car, I put a DVD on, they've both got to be able to hear it.

7. Connection to my iTunes library over the Internet. Actually it seems a little crazy to me that all Apple devices don't do this. When I'm on my own WiFi network it's no problem at all to play music or a video from my desktop computer on my laptop, so why isn't it the same when I'm out but still on broadband? Don't give me security reasons - you know it can be done, and eventually will be.

That, for me, would make it pretty compelling. Anyone any other thoughts? ]]> Apple Hardware GuyClapperton http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220766.html News Story Any Way You Slice It, Rough Week for Apple http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220756.html Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:13:53 GMT For years now, Apple has been on a heck of a ride creating pleasing products with a loyal customer base, but suddenly this month the tide seems to have turned, at least in the press. As my DaniWeb colleague, Davey Winder (http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4636.html) pointed out last week, the press... For years now, Apple has been on a heck of a ride creating pleasing products with a loyal customer base, but suddenly this month the tide seems to have turned, at least in the press. As my DaniWeb colleague, Davey Winder pointed out last week, the press jumped on numbers earlier this month that showed Apple's famed customer service was down a tick. It was literally a point from the previous surveys, yet some writers treated it as a turning point.

Maybe what's turned is that the press tired of Apple's infamous arrogance has suddenly turned on the Cupertino company. I didn't realize it myself until I started gathering links for a possible post on the programmer poaching battles going on between Apple, Palm and Microsoft when I began to see a clear pattern of bad news over last week.

Apple Attempts to Block Profile on Steve Jobs (August 17th)

In what amounts to a ridiculous attempt to control the press, Apple reportedly attempted to block a profile on Steve Jobs from being printed in the Sunday Times. Granted, the article is often over the top, and it's in my view even a bit silly in parts. I'm not sure why they would care or think they could wield that kind of influence. They could just let readers decide, but it's yet another example of Apple's attempt to constantly maintain control of the message.

Lawyer Wars with Psystar (August 20th)

Next up were reports of issues during the on-going litigation with clone maker Psystar, which according to Macworld "complained to a federal judge Tuesday that a top Apple executive was "unprepared" and "unwilling to testify" during a recent deposition." This is part of litigation dating back over a year between Apple and Psystar over the latter's right to sell Mac clones. Apple once again might let the market decide instead of being threatened by competition, and letting the legal wrangling continue to be a distraction.

Exploding iPhones and iPods Oh My (August 20th)

The news kept getting worse for Apple when the iPhone Blog reported that at least 3 iphones or iPods have exploded in recent months. Everyone knows that Apple devices run hot because they pack the maximum amount of computing power in the smallest possible package, but an exploding device is disconcerting, even if they are isolated incidences.

Apple Blocked Google Voice? (August 21st)

Then on Friday came reports that Apple attempted to block Google Voice on the iPhone, which has by the way caught the attention of the FCC. PaidContent.org reports that AT&T didn't hold back as it threw Apple under the bus:

Quote:
“Let me state unequivocally, AT&T had no role in any decision by Apple to not accept the Google Voice application for inclusion in the Apple App Store,” said Jim Cicconi, AT&T senior executive vice president for external and legislative affairs. “AT&T was not asked about the matter by Apple at any time, nor did it offer any view one way or the other.”
Perhaps this is just a strange glitch in a month traditionally short on news, but the pattern was clear last week. It's entirely likely that consumers won't care about any of this. It's just background noise (except for the exploding iPhones and iPods), and when Apple makes its new product announcements next month, it will all slip quietly back into the background, but you have to wonder if at some point, it begins to catch up with the company. For now, it doesn't seem to care. ]]> Apple Hardware Techwriter10 http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220756.html