Appletell

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]

Rob Griffiths over at Macworld.com has put together an article and video outlining some great tips and tricks for being slightly more productive in OS X. These tips include some basic QuickTime and Quicklook video functions, Printing selected pages in Preview, and even some more ‘hardcore’ Terminal commands to help with Time Machine.

The three tips that I found the most useful have to be the ability to turn off the Time Machine nags about which disk you prefer to backup to - especially a problem if you have multiple drives connected to your Mac. It can easily be shut off using the following command typed into Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.TimeMachine DoNotOfferNewDisksForBackup -bool YES

The second is actually not an OS X-specific tip, but definitely a useful one. It is a bookmarklet that you can keep in your bookmarks folder that lets you do site-specific Google searches while on a page. It’s very easy to get set up and extremely useful. Drag me into your bookmark bar (don’t click on the link, add it to your bookmarks), or save the following code in the address field of a bookmark:

javascript:Qr=prompt(’Search%20Site%20for’,’’);if(Qr)location.href=’http://www.google.com/search?&q=site:’+encodeURIComponent(window.location.hostname)+’+’+escape(Qr)

The third is the ability to go from Terminal to Finder or Finder to Terminal very easily while keeping the structure you were in. i.e. If you are in Finder and in the Applications folder, you can run this app and will end up in the Terminal in the Applications directory - ready to run a command. To do so you will need to create a script, in AppleScript, using the following code:

tell application “Finder”
set myWin to window 1
set theWin to (quoted form of POSIX path of (target of myWin as alias))
tell application “Terminal”
activate
tell window 1
do script “cd “ & theWin
end tell
end tell
end tell

To get a better understanding of the methods I posted here, and to view the full list, check out the article and video at Macworld.com.

Read [MacWorld]

Apple has announced WWDC 2008. It will be held June 9th-13th at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco, as usual.

The most anticipated part of WWDC by Apple fans is the keynote presentation which will be held. The keynote will be held on the 10th, as it is a Tuesday, and promises to be big. The invite image (above) features two Golden Gate bridges and the title: “A landmark event. In more ways than one.”

Last year’s WWDC keynote was generally agreed a major letdown. It was mainly Leopard focused, and they focused almost entirely on features they had previously demoed at Macworld 2007. No big “Top Secret” features that Steve had promised were unveiled, and overall, very little new stuff was shown compared to an average keynote.

With luck, Apple will live up to the bar-setting tagline of this month’s invitation and announce some really cool stuff. WWDC is usually the place where professional computers and software get updates. Consumer products are reserved for Macworld.

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.

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]

If you have super-eagle eyes, and were watching the new HD stream of the Macworld 2008 keynote, you might have noticed that Steve Jobs showed a screenshot of Time Machine with a new button in the lower left-hand corner entitled, “Only Show Changes”. Apparently, this new button will allow you to see only the changes that were made over the days of your backups, most likely hiding the other redundant information. This could be an upcoming feature in Mac OS X 10.5.2, which is expected to include remote Time Machine backups, Menu-bar opacity options, and over 100 bug fixes.

MacRumors has the latest scoop on the MacBook Air. It appears the first unboxing photos come from a remote Macworld Expo presentation in Japan. The pictures show that they received their demonstration MacBook Air in the retail packaging. Because the MacBook Air contains this new technology Apple calls “Remote Disc”, it has the ability to wirelessly boot off of a Remote Disc shared drive. This means that if your MacBook Air requires an emergency boot or fresh reinstall, it can be done without the $99 external SuperDrive - pretty cool. This added functionality required changes in the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) and is not presently available on other Macs.

The MacBook Air will most likely ship with Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.2, the next updated that many have been eagerly awaiting. Leopard is currently still full of minor bugs that can get majorly annoying. The sooner Apple can get this update out, the better. MacRumors have reportedly been told that Mac OS X 10.5.2 will bring wireless booting to all Macs. This means all of us will be able to borrow another computer’s drive - PC or Mac - for booting from disc.

MacBook Air Unboxing [Flickr] Via [MacRumors]

Steve Jobs made a big deal in his Macworld keynote addressing the environmentally friendly aspects of the MacBook Air. Greenpeace and Apple haven’t exactly been the best of friends in the past, with Greenpeace protesting outside outside of Macworld 2007, and flagship Apple stores. Surprisingly though, they approve of the MacBook Air, calling it a “winner”:

“The MacBook Air is a strong entry in the race to build a green PC. As a mercury and arsenic free laptop it exceeds European Standards (RoHS directive exemptions) and raises the bar for the rest of the industry.”

They are still not too happy about the use of PVC and BFRs, but saying that Apple has “raised the bar” with this machine is a big deal, and it shows the signs that we are starting to see a greener Apple who makes sure their products are good for the environment.

Via [Macworld]

It’s Tuesday. The week before the Macworld keynote. The Apple store goes down, and all the mac geeks run to their computers and frantically refresh in order to see a new Apple product.  What does Apple do? They release a brand new Mac Pro. This upgrade is actually pretty significant. Every single Mac Pro now has 8-cores. You can buy Mac Pros with 2.8Ghz, 3.0Ghz, or even a 3.2Ghz processor. These beasts support up to 32GB of RAM, however, come with 2GB. They have 4 HD bays, supporting up to 4TB of data storage. Also, these Mac Pros come with a slight raise in price.

MORE »

You’ve heard about Web 2.0 and anime conferences; now there’s one for Final Cut users and filmmakers alike. In fact it’s considered to be the biggest of its kind. Held at MacWorld Expo for the seventh time, the event will take place at 5pm on the 16th of January. Interested participants should head to the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. And you should be interested too, because there will be presentations from several filmmakers as well as Final Cut-related products from 22 different retailers.

However, that’s not all. According to AppleInsider, Apple is supposedly going to announce “something super secret” at the event. While it’s hard to lay a finger as to what this “super secret” thing is, I doubt it will be an update to the Final Cut Studio suite, seeing that it was only refreshed last April. However, Apple has historically used such events to talk about its “Pro” lineup, which includes the MacBook Pro, Mac Pro and the XServe.

Admission is $10 per head.

Read [AppleInsider] and [FCPUG Macworld SuperMeet]