Appletell

News of the HP TouchSmart tx2 swept blogs, news sites, and social networks alike this week, and, as imagined, this touch screen laptop was instantly pointed out as a direct victory over Apple.  For example, BusinessWeek even wrote, “Apple watchers assumed Jobs & Co. would be the first to offer a multitouch laptop, but Hewlett-Packard has beaten them to the punch.“  Being that Apple created the extremely successful touch screen iPhone that soon became a huge drive behind the development of many of the touch screen phones on the market today, many people are surprised that Apple hasn’t announced a tablet or touch screen computer yet. Now, with this product from HP, many of those people feel as if Apple has already lost the race in this category, and that is not the case.

To begin with, Apple already has a form of multitouch integrated into their laptops in the form of their glass trackpad. We’re aware this isn’t the same as having the whole screen be touch, but it is very helpful, nonetheless. On top of this, if Apple ever does release a multitouch laptop, we’re sure many of their customers will be much more blown away by Apple’s model than their competitors’ as usual. Although the HP tx2 does look quite tempting, we think it’s fair to assume that Apple’s quality of product is always top notch. Then, there is always the thought that we may not even need multitouch on our laptops.  There aren’t that many situations where it is necessary, if you ask me. And if you are an artist who would like to draw on your laptop, you’re more likely to use a Wacom anyways.

What do you think? Has Apple lost the battle for the multitouch laptop market, or is it much too early to call? Let us know in the comments.

Via [BusinessWeek]

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Some owners of the new MacBook and MacBook Pros have discovered something strange when you try to play some iTunes video content to an external display. If that display is not HDCP compliant, then iTunes will return \an error saying that a connected display is not authorized to play protected movies.

While this may seem like a minor issue, consider if you plan on playing a purchased iTunes movie through a projector. Most projectors these days still feature a VGA input for connecting a computer. These users will now be unable to play content purchased from the iTunes Store.

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With the flexibility and virtualization options the Mac platform offers, it is no surprise to us that this operating system is becoming the first choice for many developers in today’s world. On top of the ability to virtualize both Windows and Linux on a Mac, developers are also able to code in anything that requires Java (i.e. Google’s Android SDK and RIM’s BlackBerry SDK). This means that by running Mac OS X, developers won’t be missing out on anything and will be able to test almost every possible environment for their application on one machine. These are just a few of the many reasons InfoWorld points out that many developers are now making the switch.

Another reason this is occurring, according to their article, is because of how closely Mac OS X resembles BSD under all of the eye candy Apple has added. This means the OS X environment is close to that of Sun Microsystem’s, making it an even easier switch for developers. On the other end, among the negatives pointed out in the article are the expense of Apple’s machines, as well as the fact that it is a pretty closed system, meaning Apple has some control over what can and can’t happen on their systems. However, what it all comes down to, according to Jason Fried, one of the co-founders of 37signals, is, “When you work on something great, you’re generally going to build something greater.“

Via [InfoWorld]

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Apple has just released an update for the new MacBook and MacBook Pro that is supposed to fix the unrecognized clicks on the new glass trackpad. The issue has been publicly complained about quite a bit on Apple’s own discussion forums.

This firmware update addresses an issue where trackpad clicks may not be recognized on MacBook (Late 2008) and MacBook Pro (Late 2008) systems.

When installation is complete, the updater application will launch automatically. Follow the instructions in the updater application to complete the update process. (If Software Update requires a restart, the updater application will launch after you log in.)

I just installed and tested the update, and it appears to solve the clicking issues. I personally found my trackpad before the update to not recognize clicks occasionally, but with the update installed, the issue seems to have gone away.

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MacRumors posted yesterday that someone has been able to hack their January 2008 MacBook Air to support four finger gestures, including Expose, and Application Changer entirely through software. The user posted to the MacRumors Forums saying how the hack was done. I cannot personally confirm the validity of this hack, but if it is true, I find it to be very interesting that this could be changed entirely with software. This could allow Apple to enable it in Mac OS X v10.5.6 on all MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros supporting MultiTouch gestures.

Apple first introduced Multi-Touch gestures on the MacBook Air announced at MacWorld, in January this year. The gestures included with the original MacBook are were all either one finger, two finger or three finger gestures. Apple released the new MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air on October 14th, all of which support the new four finger gestures.

Via [MacRumors]

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Black Friday is right around the corner, and Barclays Capital experts believe that Apple won’t be fooling around this year. According to their analysts, they are predicting that Apple will launch a very aggressive one-day sale the Friday after Thanksgiving of this year on a lot of their Mac models. What do they mean by aggressive? Analyst Ben Reitzes says, “We have not seen any Apple Black Friday ads yet (as is customary), but expect the company to be more aggressive than usual in its one-day sale, perhaps with $100 off a few Mac models and discounts on several iPods.“

With companies like Wal-mart, Dell, and Best Buy all offering notebooks in the $299 range, Apple will definitely have to offer a nice sale this time around if they want to take advantage of this holiday season. Apple has offered $100 discounts on their online retail store in the past, so this year should only bring more sales as Apple has lower priced “netbooks” to compete with. Furthermore, Ben also wonders if this year AT&T will follow French iPhone carrier Orange’s lead and offer a sizable discount on the iPhone. It’s still up in the air, though, as to what will happen for sure. As usual, we haven’t heard anything from Apple yet.

Via [AppleInsider]

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To look at the Racer-X laptop bag from WaterField, you wouldn’t think it would run upwards of $190. In fact, when I showed it to a colleague of mine, he said just that; “It’s not worth it.“ But he doesn’t speak for all of us. First, he’s a PC user, and that’s a different mindset than those of us protecting the more expensive Apple laptops. Second, he made the comment based solely on the outward appearance of the Racer-X. And whereas it is sharp looking, it’s mostly canvas, not leather. It’s not a hard case. It doesn’t offer a locking mechanism. So, what does the Racer-X feature to justify the premium cost? Quite a bit, actually. Quite a bit.

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You’re turning green. I can see it. And not in a Hulky way; no, it’s more like an envious green. This kid has the one product that many of us have been dreaming about for some time now. Well, kinda. This is the closest anyone will be getting to a MacBook nano until at least next year, if at all. It’s obviously not a Macintosh—no, it’s a Hackintosh—but it’s still pretty sweet.

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The newest line of Apple’s popular MacBook laptops currently ship with a new, large multi-touch glass trackpad. However, with the addition of this glass trackpad, Apple and Steve Jobs also gave in to their hate for buttons by getting rid of the click buttons and making the whole trackpad a button. With some quick math, Apple now only has one button on their entire machine other than the power button.  However, users are starting to find issues with the button that causes some clicks to not register.

MacRumors is now reporting that one of their readers has gotten an answer to an e-mail they sent to Steve Jobs asking him what was up with this issue. The answer this reader received read, “Software fix coming soon.“ So, there you have it; if you are being bothered by this annoying issue, expect a solution soon. Hopefully, you have learned your lesson to wait a month or two after new Apple products are released. But that’s okay, we know it’s hard.

Via MacRumors

For the sake of jailbreakers and certain Dev Teams, we should all hope this is false, but rumor has it that the new unibody aluminum MacBooks cannot recognize the DFU mode required to jailbreak current iPhones and iPod touches. Some users in iPhone and iPod touch forums are reporting that their new laptops will not detect their devices when in DFU mode, thus slamming the door in the face of the modified firmware that PwnageTool creates. What’s most likely happening is that a specific build of iTunes in the new MacBooks is blocking access to devices in DFU mode. 

While it wasn’t uncommon for Apple to patch any holes that their iPhone firmwares had, this ushers in a whole new element of sneakiness from Apple’s part. If this does prove to be true, then it will require a lot of effort by hacking teams to figure out what the problem really is, and with luck, solve it. The upside is that Apple cannot push out new computers every time the dev team, or somebody else, cracks the iPhone or iPod touch firmware. This, however, may just be an isolated incident, which, hopefully, does not affect the masses. Either way, we should find out soon enough what the deal really is, and how it affects iPhone and iPod touch users.

Read [HowardForums] and [iPod touch fans] Via [Gizmodo]

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