Apple
News
“One-of-a-kind
gift ideas” you can create on your Mac
Offering readers a gift suggestion “I’m certain your loved
one isn’t going to receive from somebody else,” Bob LeVitus
(Houston Chronicle) suggests “creating a book or calendar”
from the images in your iPhoto library. And, LeVitus points out, “it
couldn’t be easier to create one in iPhoto: Just select the photos,
drag them where you want them on the pages and then add some text. When
you’re done, you order it with a click of a button.”
Thinking about placing an order?
You have just a few days left if you want your parties to receive their
gifts by December 25. [Dec 11, 2007]
Customers download
100,000 copies of Bento in just 30 days
Created expressly for Mac OS X Leopard, Bento, the personal database from
FileMaker, has caught fire. As FileMaker announced this morning, customers
eager to experience the easy-to-use applications have downloaded more
than 100,000 copies of the preview release in just 30 days. What’s
more, Bento has received excellent reviews. A reviewer at Networkworld.com,
for example, said of Bento, “I, for one, never thought I’d
see a database able to achieve that level of simplicity. Yet another reason
to consider a Mac?” [Dec 11, 2007]
Lecture notes travel
well on iPod
“Laura Martho, a student at El Centro College in Dallas,”
writes Anne Eisenberg (New York Times) “has four children [and]
commutes 45 minutes each way four days a week to a hospital for clinical
work in echocardiology. During the commute, she plugs an iPod into her
car radio to review lectures, and checks visuals during lunch.“
And Martho’s hardly alone in her studious use of iPod. Indeed, she
joins an increasing number of students who take advantage of the “lecture-capture”
systems more and universities have installed to bring the art of lecture
notes into the 21st century. [Dec 10, 2007]
ChangeWave calls Mac
the “dominant PC Story of 2008”
Looking at the data collected in their latest PC buying survey, ChangeWave
paints a picture of “extraordinary momentum” for the Mac.
“Not only do new Mac buyers report sky high satisfaction with their
desktops and laptops, but planned Apple purchases for the next 90 days
also look exceptionally robust,” report Jim Woods and Paul Carton
(changewave.com). In fact, 24% of survey respondents say that Leopard
“has made them more likely to buy a Mac in the future.” [Dec
10, 2007]
The tale of the traveling
music teacher
Inspiring students to practice regularly may not be an easy assignment
for any music teacher, but Sarah Grenier found iPod, her MacBook, and
iLife to be excellent motivators. Grenier records student performances
on a digital camcorder, edits the footage in iMovie, then burns the finished
video using iDVD so that students can enjoy—and critique—their
own performances and share their progress with parents, staff, and other
students. Like to hear how she uses iPod in the classroom? [Dec 10, 2007]
“Apple Stores
are rockin’” says TechIQ
The “Var Guy” at TechIQ Magazine offers “five reasons
why Apple’s retail strategy is crushing the competition this holiday
season:” Simplicity, Quality, Integration, Expertise, and Design.
As an example, the Var Guy contrasts buying a Windows smartphone with
buying an iPhone: “buy the iPhone (five minute process), link it
to your Mac (five minute process), and activate the iPhone online (five
minute process), and you’ll be wondering why Apple’s approach
isn’t the norm for the entire cell phone industry.” [Dec 10,
2007]
About
Apple
Apple Computer Inc., is an
American multinational corporation with a focus on designing and manufacturing
consumer electronics and closely related software products. Established
in Cupertino, California on April 1, 1976, Apple develops, sells, and
supports a series of personal computers, portable media players, mobile
phones, computer software, and computer hardware and hardware accessories.
As of September 2007, the company operates about 200 retail stores in
five countries,[3] and an online store where hardware and software products
are sold. The iTunes Store provides music, audiobooks, iPod games, music
videos, episodes of television programs, and movies which can be downloaded
using iTunes on Mac or Windows, and also on the iPod touch and the iPhone.
The company's best-known hardware
products include the Macintosh line of personal computers, the iPod line
of portable media players, and the iPhone. Apple's software products include
the Mac OS X operating system, the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity
software, and Final Cut Studio, a suite of professional audio- and film-industry
software products.
The company, incorporated January
3, 1977,[4] was known as "Apple Computer, Inc." for its first
30 years. On January 9, 2007, the company dropped "Computer"
from its corporate name,[5] reflecting the company's ongoing expansion
into the consumer electronics market in addition to its traditional focus
on personal computers.[6]
Apple employs over 20,000 permanent
and temporary workers worldwide[2] and had worldwide annual sales in its
fiscal year 2007 (ending September 29, 2007) of US$24.01 billion.[1]
For a variety of reasons, ranging
from its philosophy of comprehensive aesthetic design to their advertising
campaigns, Apple has engendered a distinct reputation in the consumer
electronics industry and has cultivated a customer base that is unusually
devoted to the company and its brand, particularly in the United States.
Latest
Apple Reviews
iTouch
The touch is a thing of beauty.
It's much skinnier than the iPhone (which, for those who haven't held
one, is the same depth as the old 30GB iPod Video), and it's also a bit
shorter and a hair wider, with dimensions of 4.3 by 2.4 by 0.3 inches.
The touch weighs a manageable 4.2 ounces (compared with the iPhone's 4.8
ounces). Are you going to slip this thing into your pocket? Depends. Cargo
pants? Sure. Skinny jeans? No. The 3.5-inch multitouch widescreen has
a resolution of 480-by-320, with 163 pixels per inch—identical to
the iPhone's. The only button on the device is the same button you'll
find on the face of the iPhone. The touch's rear panel is shiny stainless
steel like that of iPods past, not the brushed metallic look that iPhones
have. In the upper left-hand corner of the rear panel, you'll find the
black patch of plastic that houses the Wi-Fi antenna. The proprietary
30-pin iPod connection and headphone jack (which isn't recessed like the
iPhone's) rest on the bottom panel, and the sleep switch rests on the
top left edge of the player (when held vertically). There's no camera
on the iPod touch, but that's doesn't detract much from it, since the
iPhone's camera is more toy than tool. Like the iPhone, the touch has
a built-in accelerometer to make possible all those view changes when
the player is held horizontally.
Navigation of the music, video,
and photo menus is identical on the touch and the iPhone. Similarly, the
players load and sync with iTunes in much the same way. You can scroll
down lists of artists, albums, and playlists when in vertical mode, or
turn the player horizontally to view the excellent Cover Flow feature.
For those who haven't seen it before (it's now part of iTunes and was
featured on the iPhone), Cover Flow orders records alphabetically in a
horizontal array, but visually, using album art. Drag your finger through
the display to move the covers, as if thumbing through a virtual vinyl
collection, and click on the central cover to flip the graphic over and
reveal a track list. From here, you can simply click on a song and start
playing. This is the coolest way to navigate a music menu I have ever
seen—and it's much more effective here than it is on the new nano,
which lacks the sexy multitouch screen and is less graceful in its movement
of the album art. The Now Playing screen makes the album cover the main
focus, filling most of the screen when vertical, and is identical to the
same screen on the iPhone. When your iPod touch has finished syncing to
your PC's library, you can just unplug it—none of the ejecting business
that other iPods make you do (and that you inevitably forget to do once
in awhile, prompting an ugly error screen on your computer).
Possibly the best new feature
is a subtle one: the double click. Pressing the only tactile button on
the player twice makes music controls appear over whatever screen mode
you happen to be in—Safari, YouTube, or whatever. Even if the player
is locked, double-clicking will bring up a set of music controls that
features track information, play/pause, forward and backward within a
playlist or album, a Music button to take you directly to the Now Playing
screen, and a Close button to escape. This function works even if the
screen has timed out and gone black, and it's a great quick way to skip
that song you hate (or pump up the volume on the one you love).
File compatibility for the
touch will not surprise those familiar with iPods. For music, MP3 files
(all bit rates, including VBR) load and play, as do AAC (both Apple's
DRM tracks or iTunes Plus, obviously), Apple Lossless, Audible, AIFF,
and WAV files. Video support is limited to H.264 and MPEG-4; photo support
is for JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIF, PSD (for Macs only), and PNG. All songs, videos,
contacts, photos (which are pulled from iPhoto via iTunes), podcasts are
loaded via iTunes when the player is synced.
The audio performance of the
touch is excellent, as long as you chuck those lame earbuds and get a
real pair—try Shure's SE210 earphones if you want to actually hear
the low end and would like the earphones to stay in place. One complaint
I've always had about iPods is the lack of user-programmable EQ. Apple
allows you to change EQ settings only in iTunes, and then the settings,
for each song, will carry over onto the player. That's a solution for
folks who really want to micromanage, but most people would be happy with
a standard adjustable EQ, such as the Sony Walkman, Samsung, and Sansa
players all have. You might get lucky with some of the standard EQ presets,
such as Dance or Jazz, but I suggest just leaving the EQ off and finding
the right pair of earphones.—next: Wireless iTunes. by Tim Gideon,
PCMAG.COM
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