Appletell

Since the sweet days of Apple offering live streams of their keynotes are long gone, there is now an official, although not instant, alternative. Now, in iTunes, Apple is hosting a Podcast titled “Apple Keynotes.” Through the podcast, you can download and watch past keynotes—obviously, all for free. The only videos that have been uploaded so far are MacWorld San Francisco (2007 and 2008), and the iPhone Software Roadmap intro.

Apple’s promptness will be tested with how long it takes them to post the proceedings at WWDC ‘08 (but who needs the official podcast when you can tune in to our live-blog on the day of the event...be sure to visit Appletell Monday morning at 10:00 a.m. PST).

Via [TUAW]

When announcing iTunes Movie Rentals, Steve Jobs said to expect 100 High Definition, 5.1 Surround Sound titles available for rent by February.  Although Apple has made this goal, they are really short in their goal of 1,000 standard definition titles.  396 short, to be exact. Although there are 197 HD titles, of which exactly 100 are 5.1 Surround Sound, there are a relatively meager 604 SD titles.  Also of note is the fact that only six (yes, only six) titles have been added to the content library since March.

This may seem very un-Apple to set a seemingly attainable goal and miss by a mile, but they managed to do so.  If Apple ever wants to be a substantial competitor for Amazon’s Unboxed or Netflix’ Instant Watch, both of which have thousands of titles (it is still pretty foggy on whether or not Apple is really actually trying to compete with those two companies). 

Via [iLounge]

If you have been waiting for Apple to really update their power horses, today is your lucky day! Today at Macworld SF, the Powermac G3 was introduced, which replaces it’s younger sibling of the same name. The new machines features a 300-400MHz processor (still based on the PowerPC G3 architecture), a folding side which allows access to the guts of the G3, and the ability to install up to 1GB of RAM!

With this new release, comes a brand new case design, with a blue or white plastic enclosure, as opposed to a beige enclosure. The new design looks worlds better than the previous model Powermacs, and I am sure that Apple will radically change the case design again in the next few revisions of this model.

These new machines show Apple’s taking a step toward radical new designs, instead of keeping with the common place look of IBM machines. From now on,
when you see an Apple computer, you know it’s an Apple computer.
Image Courtesy of Apple

Adobe Systems Incorporated announced yesterday that Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 6 for Macintosh® is available immediately. “Since its January launch at the 2008 Macworld Expo, Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac was named “Best of Show,” and given the 2008 Editors’ Choice Awards by The Mac Observer and the 2008 Macworld Award by Macsimum News,” the Adobe Press Release reads.

The biggest new features to Photoshop Elements 6.0 are the fact that it is now a Universal Binary, the new Photomerge technology, and a new interface and different levels of the program depending on the user’s expertise.

According to Adobe, “Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for Macintosh runs on Leopard, (Mac OS X v 10.5.2), as well as previous versions of Mac OS X starting with 10.4.8. [...] Photoshop Elements 6 is immediately available in the United States and Canada for an estimated street price of US$89.99. Owners of previous versions of Photoshop Elements can upgrade to Photoshop Elements 6 for US$69.99 with an in-box, mail-in rebate or through http://www.adobe.com.”

Photoshop Elements 6.0 can be purchased at Apple Stores, Apple.com, Amazon.com, Best Buy Stores, BestBuy.com, Costco.com, J&R, Microcenter, NewEgg.com, Staples Stores and Staples.com.

You can read my first look reviews, on speed and features and the interface, and also keep an eye out for a final review of the final copy, coming in a few days.

This Tuesday was the first Tuesday since the beginning of 2008 that Apple did not announce a product. Looking back on the remarks Steve Jobs made at Macworld 2008, most specifically his implication that we would see an update every week, it seems they have fallen short on their promise. Not so. This Thursday, Apple will unveil the iPhone/iPod Touch SDK. So many are forgetting that to count in the week, Apple doesn’t have to release a product on a Tuesday.

So now the question becomes, can Apple really release something on every single Tuesday of the year? In my opinion, they easily can. Apple this year has changed their approach to updates, seemingly forgoing the “events” where they unveil one or more products at a time. Instead, they have released something every week with no prior announcement. Whether it is small, like the addition of a 2 GB iPod Shuffle, or big, like the MacBook Air, or even a price change, I see Apple as easily filling up the year with updates.

Macworld’s Christopher Breen discovered quite by accident that Apple allows for you to keep your rentals longer than 24 hours.

Apparently, if you pause the movie, and keep it paused, you can finish watching it once you press play again, no matter how long after the expiration it is.

For instance, if you start watching a movie today, and then pause it, and then a month later click play again, your device will display a screen informing you that the rental has expired and you can either “Resume” or “Delete.” Clicking “Resume” continues the movie, but it is un-pauseable and if you stop it, the movie will delete.

This is a nice little feature Apple has added in that basically ensures you get to see the whole movie as long as you only paused it. Breen notes that once he force-restarted his iPod, the rental was no longer there.

Read [Macworld]

The Macworld Expo is like CES - so many products to see that you forget about most of the smaller ones. But sometimes, the smallest products are the coolest and most innovative out there. Macworld picked up on something quite special: The $100 BTKeyMini from MacAlly. It’s a small, portable, foldable Bluetooth keyboard - something that many of you will have seen before in the past. So what’s so special about the BTKeyMini? A writer at Macworld had a talk with one of the MacAlly representatives, and apparently when the BTKeyMini arrives in March, it will be compatible with iPhone. If this is true - it will be a first. You will be able to use it in any iPhone application where the normal touch-screen would be used as a keyboard input.

An external keyboard for the iPhone may not seem like much - but it is. This would transform the iPhone from a “smartphone” to a smarterphone. You would be able to type emails at least two times faster with this keyboard - and when you’re done, you just fold it up and put it in a bag. This could, in fact, eliminate the need of a laptop like a MacBook Air in a lot of situations. The iPhone can visit every website on the internet thanks to its Safari browser - and you can do that anywhere in the world thanks to its EDGE connection (although HSDPA would have been a lot better). I can’t wait to see this thing in action.

Via [Macworld]

Electronista reports that Lenovo may be prepping an “Air-killer” already. Following on the heels of the Macworld announcement of the MacBook Air, Gizmodo received a tip stating that the upcoming ThinkPad X300 would also have a 13.3 inch LED backlit screen, would weigh in at 2.5 pounds, half a pound lighter than the MacBook Air. The upcoming computer apparently will also sport a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo with an 800 MHz bus, 400 MHz faster than the Air’s processor. The computer would also have a 1400x900 resolution commonly found on 17” displays, optional 3G or WiMax Internet, and an empty drive bay that could house a DVD burner, ExpressCard slot, or second battery.

Apparently the system will also ship with a 1.8 inch 64 GB solid state drive standard and have up to 4 GB of memory and three USB ports. Electronista says that it is planned for the first half of the year, but no price has been set.

In my opinion, this just sounds like a bunch of crap. Unless the planned release is really a few years in the future, at which point the MacBook Air would be able to match these specs, there is really no way it could maintain or even rival the Air’s thinness, especially with a drive bay. That said, if this is real, it would be the perfect computer if it could run OS X. I also wonder about the price, and how, with all this wonderful technology inside, it will be able to come close to the Air in price.

Read [Electronista]

I still think it is unfair that Apple is charging $20 for a software update that should have been free. Engadget has the rumor that if you bought your iPod Touch after January 1st, then you are eligible for a free software update.

“If you got your touch after January 1st, you should still be within the window of Apple’s price protection, meaning Apple’s standard policy for this stuff should allow you to update your touch apps and apply for a credit back on the $20 levy.”

Apple hasn’t confirmed anything on this subject yet - maybe they were expecting people to pay up the $20 because they thought they “had to”. Even if this does turn out to be true, it won’t apply to many people. The majority of people would have bought iPods over the Christmas period. All of those people are now stuck with a $20 fee for 5 apps that new customers and iPhone owners get for free. Instead of complicating this situation, Apple should just do the right thing and make it free to all of us. After all, we are the early adopters - and we should be treated just as well as new customers are.

Via [Engadget]

Apple’s iPhone Firmware 1.1.1 was the big iPhone fiasco last year- it caused tons of reports of “bricked” or unusable iPhones. Anyone who had hacked their iPhone to use another network was at a high risk of having their iPhone rendered unusable. At the time Apple said that the bricking was not intentional, but was a side effect of the update on top of unsupported hacks. They also rightly said that they had no responsibility to fix it, but it seems that they may have gone out of their way to do just that.

iPhone Firmware 1.1.3 gives hope to all with bricked iPhones sitting on their mantles. Gizmodo was able to regain their jailbroken iPhone’s purity with only a few snags. The iPhone was previously hacked with AnySIM and they were able to restore it to AT&T and use the phone and data transfers.

The biggest snag Gizmodo ran into was that they had to restart the iPhone and re-register in order to get the registration to work.

Firmware 1.1.3 is free and available when starting up iTunes.

Read [Gizmodo]