Appletell

In a press release noting the MacBook Air’s shipping, Apple announced that the Apple TV Take 2 Software Update is “not quite finished” and that Apple “now plans to make the free software download available to existing Apple TV customers in another week or two.”

The Apple TV Update, announced at Macworld, will allow the Apple TV to work without a connection to a Mac or PC. Users of the Apple TV will now be able to rent and buy movies, buy music, and watch existing content from their iTunes libraries directly from the Apple TV. The new software was expected to be released right around this time, but Apple says it could take just a little more time.

The Apple TV began shipping in March 2007 but was met with lukewarm praise at best. At Macworld in January 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that they realized the mistakes they had made with the Apple TV, and would be re-doing the device, dubbing it “Apple TV Take 2”

Read [Apple PR]

Here is a great Youtube video by a person called “DoctorMacenstein” chronicling the life and times of the Apple website. Sadly, the views aren’t comprehensive (you’ll have to hit the “Wayback Machine” for that) but it is a nice walk down the Mac’s memory lane. It’s paved with wild colored CRT-based iMac’s and toilet seat shaped clamshell iBooks. The video is pretty well done, I make no promises on the Skid Row song.

The MacBook Air news has been fairly quiet recently, apart from the fact that some MBAs are shipping already. Now, the MacBook Air has its own home on the Apple Support web site. If you’re a soon-to-be MacBook Air owner, you should definitely take a look at the User’s Guide (PDF), chime in on the forums, and figure out how to setup your MacBook Air. Or if you’re just curious about Apple’s latest notebook, you can take a read on how it works and chat in jealousy with the people that have ordered them.

There’s a lot really interesting information about the MacBook Air in the support section. I learned how to share DVDs and CDs via remote disc, even though I’m not going to buy a MacBook Air, it’s useful to know. And if you’ve got nothing to do, just waiting for that order status on the Apple Online Store to change - then this will give you something to do while you wait.

Laptop storage has been increasing rapidly over the past few years, with prices decreasing too. MCE technologies has just announced a 320GB SATA hard drive that will work in both the MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook computers from Apple. The 320GB MobileStor Performance hard drive utilizes the same technology used in current MacBook/Pro hard drives, 2.5 inch SATA (the MacBook Air uses a different technology called PATA in a 1.8 inch drive).

The drive has an external portable enclosure with FireWire and USB 2.0 interfaces. Bundled with it is the Mac backup software, SuperDuper! Although, you will most likely use Time Machine for your backups, it’s always good to have a system that backs up in a universal format - so you can read it on a Windows PC. It also has some unique features like Native Command Queing (NCQ), which “reorders commands in the most efficient way based on the location of data on its platters in order to retrieve that data with the least latency”, so that the drive can retrieve data super-fast. The 320GB MobileStor Performance hard drive upgrade solution costs $350 and is available today.

Via [MacNN]

Wow, I didn’t expect to see this happening. It appears that Apple is removing their international “Get a Mac” ads. Both the UK and Japan versions of the USA-successful Get a Mac ads are no longer being aired on television, neither are they on Apple’s UK or Japan website anymore. The French ads have just been removed, too. It’s a shame to see John Hodgman and Justin Long’s international equivalents gone. I’m sure all Apple wanted to do is provide more targeted advertising for these countries. I have to say though, the UK ads were nothing special. People always ignored them. I much prefer the American ones. According to Macworld UK, the ads backfired by making the PC character more sympathetic than the “smug” Mac. I think it’s time Apple switched over to another advertising campaign. Get a Mac may have been successful with some people, but it’s too over-biased in my opinion. Although I’m a proud Mac user, I still respect Windows as a great platform for some things. Apple’s ads should be praising them; not putting down the competition.

Via [MacUser]

All the MacBook Air pre-orderers have been waiting for this day for over two weeks now. The MacBook Airs are starting to ship according to TUAW. The online Apple Store in all countries lists the MacBook Air as shipping in 2-3 weeks, but, if you ordered right after the keynote your MacBook Air may just be on its way. TUAW have received several emails of excited MacBook Air owners, saying that their MacBook Airs are shipping as we speak. In fact, one reader’s MacBook Air is due for delivery on February 1st.

It is unclear whether Apple Stores will get stock in shortly - it could just be the pre-orders getting a special early delivery. Hopefully, very early next month we’ll be seeing the MacBook Airs in Apple Stores across the world. But there’s always the possibility of this happening with Apple - nobody ever knows what’s going to happen next. So, have a look for any changes in an Apple Store near you, they could be preparing for some new MacBook Airs.

Via [TUAW]

iWork ‘08 has seen some steady releases of updates since its release last year, here’s the first for 2008. Keynote 4.0.2 “primarily addresses performance issues while playing or exporting presentations.” Pages 3.0.2 “addresses compatibility with Mac OS X.” And last but not least, Numbers 1.0.2 also “addresses compatibility with Mac OS X.” So there are no new features to be seen in these updates, just some performance enhancements for Intel and Leopard, along with the usual bug fixes found in software updates.

The updates are 32.4MB 29.3MB and 27.4MB for Keynote, Pages and Numbers and are available to download through Software Update. Alternatively, you can download them or see the info on Apple’s website: Keynote 4.0.2 , Pages 3.0.2, Numbers 1.0.2.

Via [TUAW]

The ultimate reason for fairly low iPhone sales in the UK is clearly the price. The handset currently costs £269, on which you have to add an 18 month contract. The contracts start from £35 ($70), and they don’t offer a vast amount of text messages or minutes for the price - compared to some of the competition, even on the same network. The only benefit from the iPhone plans is the “unlimited” data usage - but even that is limited by 2.5G EDGE connectivity, far slower than the usual 3G in the UK. Your iPhone bill will easily come to over £900 in 18 months - the price of a top spec MacBook.

But that’s all about to change, because in February, O2 will bring its iPhone tariffs down to the prices they should have been from the start. Users currently on the £35 plan will now receive 500 texts a month and 600 minutes of talk time a month. The £45 plan will receive 1200 minutes of call time and 500 texts. The £55 will be removed from the list, bringing it down to only three tariffs. Users currently on the £55 plan will have their bills reduced to £45, or they can move to the higher £75 plan, where you will receive an incredible 3,000 minutes and 500 text messages. Check this page for more information on O2’s plans.

Via [TUAW]

Macworld’s Jason Snell describes his experience with Migration Assistant on the MacBook Air. The Air is unique in that it has no FireWire port, and so the traditional method of using Migration Assistant, Target Disk Mode, is out of the question.

Apple, of course, has a solution for this too. When you get to Migration Assistant on the Air, it shows you a window telling you to go to your other Mac, open Migration assistant, choose “To another Mac” and type a passkey. What it doesn’t say is that you must first install an updated “Migration Assistant” onto your other computer by installing the Remote Disc software from the MacBook Air installation discs. Once you have installed that software, you can then use Migration Assistant wirelessly! It will be slower than FireWire, depending on your internet speed, but it does get the job done.

Read [Macworld]

There seems to be a trend of creating an add-on app for iTunes that displays the current song on your desktop. CoverSutra is the app that most recently received the hype through the MacHeist bundle - I use it all the time and I love it’s sleek and simple interface. The Last.fm integration is what sold it for me, though.

Another great iTunes desktop app is Cover Stream (similar names seem to be a trend, too). This costs just $14.95 from the developer’s website, and has the basic feature that you’d expect from it. One neat feature that Cover Stream has that the others don’t have is a new thing they call “mini flow”. It’s basically a mini CoverFlow of all your iTunes albums on your desktop.

You can scroll through them the same way you would in iTunes or even Leopard’s finder. When you find an album you like, double-click it and it will start to play - simple. Other updates in version 1.2 is the new status window, jewel case artwork, volume indicator and colored text. Snarb.tk has fixed bugs, including some potential crashes, and has corrected an issue with album titles that have diacritical characters in them. Cover Stream 1.2 only supports Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

Via [Macworld]