MacMost: Making the most of your Mac, iPod, Apple TV and iPhone.

   Looks like we’ve been given an early holiday present by Apple: a break from the Apple rumor mill. Apple made an official statement this week that there will be no updates to product lines before the end of the year. No new iMacs or Mac Minis, which is the opposite of what we’ve heard on Apple rumor sites.
    Now the reason for such an unusual announcement is obvious: Apple wants to sell some product for the holidays and they want the selling to start now. Rumors of new product updates always get people waiting instead of buying, hoping to avoid buying a computer just before a new version comes out.
    So this may be the perfect time to buy, knowing you’ve got at least two months ahead where your purchase will remain the latest and greatest.
    Of course early January brings MacWorld, where Apple traditionally announces something new. New iMacs and a Mac Mini update or replacement are likely there. But that’s a long time to wait if you need a new machine.

   This week saw some minor software updates to Mac OS X Leopard, such as iPhoto print quality fixes. Make sure you run Software Update to download and install.
    On the hardware side, Apple is now shipping updated MacBook Airs, which include new new Nvidia video chip set, the same ones in the new MacBook Pros and MacBooks.
    The iPhone OS version 2.2 is getting closer. It was spotted on the net several times this week. Improvements seem to be the inclusion of Google Maps street view feature in the Maps application, and possibly the ability to download podcast episodes directly to the iPhone. It is frustrating now when you know a new episode of a podcast is available but you have to download it on your Mac and sync to get it on your iPhone. And street view arrives just in time as it is being touted as one of the ways that the Google Android mobile phone is better than the iPhone. At the same time the free Google Earth iPhone app was released this week. It’s more of a toy than anything else, but it can be a fun distraction when you have spare time and only your iPhone to entertain you.
    AT&T once again seems to offer free WiFi at AT&T hotspots like Starbucks for iPhone users. They have started and stopped this service without announcements before. So we’ll see if it sticks around this time.

   Everyone is in agreement that the new MacBooks look great. But almost everyone is also in agreement that the biggest problem with the new MacBooks is the removal of a Firewire port. The MacBook Pros have one, but not the new MacBooks.
    The primary use of this Firewire port was to import digital video from a camcorder. They can also be used to connect external hard drives and some other devices. But hard drives are usually USB2 nowadays, which are comparable in transfer speed to Firewire. So the main problem with not having Firewire on the new MacBooks is in connecting camcorders.
    But Steve Jobs defended this move, saying that many new camcorders use USB2 anyway. This is surprisingly true. I haven’t bought a new camcorder in about 2 years, and then Firewire was the standard. But looking around now, I see that USB2 has indeed moved into this area. There are still Firewire connectors on some camcorders, but USB2 does seem to have taken over.
    In addition, the home video camcorder market has changed. Nowadays, any decent digital camera has a video mode that captures at least 640×480 video at 30 frames per second. The quality isn’t pro-level, or even Web video level in many cases, but it is definitely family reunion video level. And these videos are transferred to your computer via USB2, or using a card reader. Also, with the popularity of small, cheap video cameras like the Flip, many people are forgetting about consumer-level camcorders all together in favor of this cool little devices.
    So the only problem I see is the situation where someone who has a Firewire-only camcorder buys a new MacBook to replace an old one. Now they find they can no longer connect the two. Their upgrade has turned into a downgrade. And with no expansion slot on a MacBook, and no way to adapt USB2 to Firewire, they really are stuck. There is just no way to use Firewire on their new MacBook.
    So existing MacBook users that use their MacBooks with a Firewire camcorder need to either get a new camcorder or upgrade to a MacBook Pro, not a MacBook.
    Looking at it from Apple’s point of view, I do see this taking care of one problem: how to differentiate the MacBooks from the MacBook Pros. In the past, the case has been different, as well as the video chips. Now that they are the same, we’ve got Firewire, expansion slot, and larger screen, to name the major differences.
    So the good news is it will be easier to choose between MacBooks and MacBook Pros. The bad news is that if you really want Firewire, you’re going to have to pay a lot more for it. But with a difference in price of $700, you can afford to replace that old camcorder with a new one anyway.

   Summary: Jobs announced new MacBook Pros, a new 24-inch display, and new MacBooks. He also announced an update for the MacBook Air. The new MacBooks and MacBook Pros feature a new style of construction where the the aluminum body is carved from a single block. They include new Nvidia graphics chips for better video performance, and a new mini display port. There is also a new glass trackpad that supports multi-touch for gestures and the entire trackpad is a the button.

   Here was the play-by-play:
    10:05 Steve Jobs comes on stage and introduces Tim Cook, the Apple COO.
    10:08 Cook talking about the success of Mac taking more market share over the last few years.
    10:10 Cook says Mac actually has 31% market share when you measure in revenue.
    10:12 Jobs introduces Jonathan Ive, Apple VP and lead designer to talk about MacBook design.
    10:15 Ive talking about building notebooks by taking a single piece of aluminum and carving parts out of it.
    10:17 Start with a 2.5 pound piece of aluminum and end up with a single .25 pound piece.
    10:20 Jobs now talking about the Nvidia 9400M chipset, which will provide video and a GPU, 5 times faster than the current MacBook integrated video.
    10:22 New MacBooks will feature a multi-touch glass trackpad, where the entire trackpad is the button.
    10:23 New trackpad will include multi-touch gestures and multiple button support through software.
    10:24 New MacBook Pro: Glass LED-backlit screen, connectors on one side only, mini display connector, new trackpad, new graphics chips, new rigid aluminum body built with new technique.
    10:25 Also: Backlit keyboard, iSight and mic, magnetic latch, motion sensor.
    10:26 New mini port connector will be on all new Macs?
    10:29 NVIDIA GeForce 9400M or the NVIDIA GeForce 9600M.
    10:31 Will include Firewire 800, two USB, mini display port, audio in and out, ExpressCard 34, and a battery indicator. No Firewire 400 (But you can use an adapter). Have slot-loading superdrive.
    10:33 Option for Solid State Drive. Can access the drive and battery through lid at bottom.
    10:34 .95 inches thick.
    10:35 Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11n.
    10:36 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 3MB L2 Cache, 2GB Memory, 250GB hard drive and SuperDrive for $1999.
    10:36 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 6MB L2 Cache, 4GB Memory, larger hard drive and SuperDrive for $2499. Also better video chips.
    10:38 Shipping today!
    10:39 Upgrading MacBook Air: Nvidia 9400M, 120GB drive, mini display port (November)
    10:40 New 24-inch display with 1920×1200, iSight, mic, stereo speakers, 3-port USB, $899 (November)
    10:41 New MacBooks: Nvidia 9400M, mini display port, glass screen, multi-touch trackpad, new construction technique like the MacBook Pro, better battery life.
    10:44 2.0 GHz processor model with 160GB drive for $1299 and 2.4 GHz for with 250GB drive for $1599.
    10:45 Old white plastic MacBook still on sale for $999. MacBooks on sale today, in stores tomorrow.
    10:46 Video shown about new MacBook and manufacturing process.
    10:52 Jobs jokes about health, shows current blood pressure on screen (110/70).
    10:53 Q&A session.
    10:54 Display Port used instead of HDMI because HDMI can’t drive 30-inch monitor.
    10:56 Blu-ray left out because it is too hard to license it.
    10:58 17-inch MacBook Pro will also be refreshed, but later.
    11:00 Only glass screens, no more matte ones in the future.
    11:02 Jobs says touch screens don’t make sense yet.
    11:03 No Mac “netBook” yet as market is too new.

   The Apps in the Apps Store are a huge success. There has been just the outpouring of creativity and innovation that everyone expected. But the App Store itself is very inadequate.
    First of all, try navigating around in it. Slow and sometimes just unresponsive. But that is par for the course when you consider the music store has always been that way. The iTunes store works as an online store, but it could work a lot better, especially considering it is a specialized piece of software communicating with a specialized server.
    Second, it clearly does not meet the needs of the developers or the users. Consider how many developers right now are communicating with their audience through updating the description of the app. Notes are sometimes changed daily with little messages about updates and such. Clearly the description area is not where this should be. Perhaps a notes, messages or developer mini-blog are needed. Perhaps the store just needs to make it clearer to users that they should visit the developer’s Web site for information like this.
    Two-way communication also seems to be a problem. Users are using reviews as a way to talk to the developer. Maybe this is because developers are being unresponsive? Or maybe it is because there is no clear line of communication between the developer and the users. Or maybe it is because the barrier to entry for a developer is so low that a single person can soon find themselves with tens or hundreds of thousands of paying customers, but no system in place to respond to requests.
    What is clear is that reviews should be reviews. That needs to be fixed. Apple already fixed it somewhat by requiring that you purchase the product in order to leave a review.
    Perhaps the App store should be taken out of iTunes altogether and put on the Web where it can be faster, presumably. We’ve done it at MacMost, sort of, by creating our own iPhone Apps directory. I enjoy using it myself just because I can quickly and clearly see what apps are new each day.

   Since the launch of the iTunes App store for iPhone and iPod Touch apps, there has been a ton of attention given to iPhone Apps. Having so many third-party developers pour their creativity into applications that run on the little iPhone is creating a renaissance in the world of software development.
    As a user, it is also a great thing. Every day new and interesting apps appear in the iTunes store that could be useful. The iPhone gets more and more powerful with every app release.
    But I’ve been disappointed in the experience of finding iPhone apps. The iTunes store is not a great way to find things — whether it is apps or music.
    I dreamed of an iPhone app directory that would show me what’s new and allow me to sort and filter.
    So I built one. Announcing the MacMost iPhone Apps Directory. I’d consider it to be in beta stage now, but it is still pretty powerful. For once thing, it makes it a lot faster and easier to check to see what’s new, or to just see what apps have just been updated.
    Anyway, check it out and send some feedback. I’ll be adding some more features soon.
    Go to the iPhone Apps Directory.

   When Steve Jobs announced that the big new feature in iTunes 08 was Genius, a music recommendation service, I, and many others, said: “Huh.”
    First of all, this sort of technology has been around for a long long time. It was years (6, 8?) ago that I first used Amazon’s feature to find similar artists based on what people bought. I used that to discover new artists, in fact. More recently, Pandora has introduced some very sophisticated music matching techniques that suggest new music based on the music itself. I’ve also used sites like AllMusic.com to find out which artists I may like.
    But Genius fails in a way that Apple is usually very good at — it really feels like it is selling you something. I feel that it is pushing me to buy music, not suggesting music I may like.
    It reminds me of my high school job, which was working at a record store. Now I worked at a cool record store. We didn’t go out onto the floor and bother people by trying to sell them more records. (By the way, by “records” I do mean vinyl). But at other stores you’d get some kid trying to suggest something: “Have you heard the latest Smithereens album?”
    Genius feels like that. I feel like telling it: “Don’t bother me, kid, I know what I want.”
    And what is with the name? A “genius” is how you would describe someone who takes one song and then suggests others? That’s not a “genius” — that’s just Jack Black in High Fidelity.
    I’d at least expect it to be smarter than Amazon or Pandora, but most of the suggestions I got were just for other songs by the same artist. And it doesn’t even seem to know that Anna Waronker was in That Dog — there are no suggestions between them.
    And what happens if I select a Beatles song? I can’t find anything! That’s weird on so many levels.
    And it has nothing to do with my Beatles songs coming from CD instead of the iTunes store — most of my music is that way. It may have to do with The Beatles not being sold on iTunes, but as a music lover I don’t really care about Apple’s legal issues.
    Anyway, I’m sure that Genius will help Apple sell more music. It can’t hurt, right? I’m sure that was part of their reasoning.
    But now that I’m not reviewing it, I’m turning it off.

   So two bits of Spore news. The first is that the iPhone version will not be released until later this month. All reports previously had mentioned that it would be out the same day as the full PC/Mac game.
    The second is that the game isn’t “Spore” but “Spore Origins.” It appears to be similar to the first part of the full PC/Mac game where you evolve a single organism floating around in a primordial ooze.
    We’ve got to point out how we predicted this back in March in the post Why We Won’t Really See Spore on the iPhone. The second bit of news, in the same press release by EA, is that the game will use the iPhone-specific controls: the motion sensor, and pinching and pulling on the multi-touch screen. This should make for a unique experience on the iPhone and iPod Touch. There are supposed to be 2 modes and 35 levels — we’ll see what that means when the game comes out.
    Meanwhile, Spore Origins has been released for the iPod Video, Classic and iPod Nano third-generation.
    Electronic Arts also announced several other titles for the iPhone in the same press release, but no specific release dates: Yahtzee Adventures, EA Mini Golf, Lemonade Tycoon, Mahjong, Monopoly: Here & Now The World Edition, SimCity, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09, Need for Speed Undercover, and The Sims 3. SimCity, in particular could be a powerful game on the iPhone.
    Update: Spore Origins is out and costs $9.99 at the iTunes App Store. It is basically just the first part of Spore, where you float around in the primordial ooze.

   Next month Comcast cable modem customers will have to start watching their bandwidth. The large Internet provider has announced that they will limit users to 250GB per month of data transfer. Previously, users have had unlimited data transfer, although there are many reports of heavy users being kicked off the service when they hit an invisible limit.
    Now 250GB is a lot of data. If you downloaded one HD movie per day, at 5GB per movie, it would add up to 150GB. If you streamed live video at .5MB per second for two hours each day, it would be about 216GB. If you downloaded a new version of your entire operating system every day, it would be about 180GB.
    So 250GB is hard to hit. Now. For most people. But soon it will be easier. And we want it to be easier. People are creating more and more content — video content — for online distribution. It is not hard to subscribe to 10, 20 or even 50 video podcasts, updating each day or week, all with hundreds of MB or even GB in file size.
    And the idea from the creator’s side is to get viewers. People are trying all sorts of different shows: news programs, comedy, vlogs, commentary, artistic, etc. This is a renaissance period for video, where all it takes is an idea, talent and hard work to make something, not a million dollar budget.
    But if a large portion of the Internet audience suddenly starts watching their bandwidth, counting each byte for fear of losing their Internet connection, then they will stop download video because it looks interesting. They will get more picky, sticking with what they know and avoiding new things.
    And this won’t just stay with Comcast. Since they took the first step, expect others to follow. Other cable providers will look at this as a way to set bandwidth limits without causing a fuss, because Comcast did it first. And competing services like DSL will do the same, claiming that they need to match Comcast’s service terms to remain competitive.
    And don’t forget that Internet video is the primary reason, I’m sure, for this bandwidth cap. Or at least it will be the primary victim. And what is Comcast’s primary business? Video. So this is an anti-competitive move. There is no bandwidth limit on Comcast’s video services, only on the Internet, which competes with Comcast’s cable channels.
    So we might be seeing the beginning of the end here. The end to innovation and creativity in Internet video. Soon it may require big budgets again, at least in marketing, to get your video noticed by the bandwidth-strangled public. Noticed enough that they are willing to spend some of their precious byte allotment to risk seeing if your show is worthwhile.

   A lot of tech journalists this week are talking about computer maker Psystar’s counter lawsuit against Apple. Psystar has been making and selling Mac clones for a few months now. They put together standard PC parts and install Mac OS X on it. The only problem being that Apple doesn’t allow Mac OS X to be installed on non-Mac computers, according to the license.
    So it was only a matter of time before Apple sued to stop Psystar. What’s interesting is that Psystar is fighting back by claiming that Apple has created an illegal monopoly by insisting that Mac OS X only gets to run on Apple-made hardware.
    So this brings up the question: Why doesn’t Apple like Psystar and other manufacturers install OS X on their machines? After all, it is a sale for Apple.
    Apple did do this for a while in the 90s. And it didn’t help Apple much at all. Those clones were a little cheaper, but quality was an issue. Steve Jobs put a stop to it as soon as he returned to Apple.
    I think quality is again the issue. OS X has an advantage over Windows. Windows needs to know how to run on a lot of different hardware configurations: processors, video cards, sound cards, motherboards, buses, etc. But OS X only needs to run using a very finite set of these things. This allows Apple to spend less time getting OS X to work on every possible configuration, and more time getting it to work well on the configurations that they know and control.
    I think the plan is to make sure that OS X is a good experience for users, wherever OS X runs. ANd if it is allowed to run on non-Apple hardware, then Apple looses control over that experience.
    I think the guys at Apple are smart and have run the numbers. They see they can make a little more by selling OS X to other manufacturers, but that they will loose customer satisfaction in the long run.
    I don’t see a monopoly here, I see the opposite. You can choose between Windows, OS X and Linux. The first is a general operating system not tied to hardware. The second is an OS that is built for specific hardware. The third is an open source solution that can be adapted to fit a need. The market has produced three different operating systems that are distinctly different, and yet all allow you to person the same basic tasks on a personal computer.