MacMost: Archives

Take a quick look at iBooks Author, the new tool from Apple that lets you create textbooks for the iPad. You can design and layout pages like in iWork Pages. You can also add special elements like photo galleries, quizzes, 3D objects and interactive images.

Two transitions in Keynote allow you to animate between similar slides. The Magic Move transition will animate the positions between objects from one slide to the next. This give you infinite variation and also allows you to create simple motion graphics for use in videos. The Anagram transition allows you to create an interesting build between two pieces of text.

This morning Apple announced a new iBooks app, and a content creation tool to match. The announcement came at a special presentation in New York featuring top Apple brass.
iBooks 2 for the iPad is available right now in the iOS app store and improves on the original by adding support for more graphics and animation, and even interactive widgets. Note-taking has also been improved. To get iBooks 2, simply go to the App Store on your iPad and update your apps. The new version of iBooks should replace the old one.

“I charge twenty bucks. Forty if you are a Wall Street analyst asking about Apple rumors.”

Sometimes you need to place a watermark, like the word DRAFT or CONFIDENTIAL, behind text in a document. You can do this using text boxes that are made into background items and then set them to appear across all pages in the document.

You can use the COUNTIF function to count the number of times an item appears in a column. You can also use COUNTIFS to total the number of rows based on several conditions in several columns. The SUMIF and SUMIFS functions will give you the total of the rows in another column based on the same criteria.

Lion allows you to merge the contents of two folders as long as you choose to copy those files, and not move them. You can also place files of the same name in the same folder as long as you let the Finder automatically rename the new files.

The non-Apple tech world is focused on the Consumer Electronics Show this week, leaving Apple news outlets to reminisce on fourth quarter and holiday sales and look forward to Apple’s next move. A Piper Jaffray analyst estimates that Apple sold 30 million iPhones last quarter, higher than expectations and up from last year. He said that the iPhone now accounts for nearly half of Apple’s revenue, and the iPad for 21 percent.
The MacBook Air line showed an increase in sales of 20 percent according to some reports. This contrasts with sales in the rest of the laptop industry which were down.
Apple confirmed this week that it purchased Anobit, a maker of high performance flash memory. Apple is the largest buy of flash memory in the world, using the chips in all iOS devices.
There are rumors of a special Apple event coming on Jan. 19 in New York. This could be an announcement of a new textbook service for the iPad. The Steve Jobs biography mentions that Apple is interested in changing how textbooks are distributed.

“I ‘liked’ your restaurant. I also gave it a thumbs up, five stars, +1 and added it to my favorites.”
“I’d rather just get a decent tip for once.”

Evernote is a third-party program that allows you to create notes on your Mac or iOS device. These notes will sync across your devices. You can create audio and photo notes as well. There are many ways to use Evernote and anyone with multiple computers or devices should check it out.

When you sign up with an ISP like a cable modem, DSL or mobile provider you are often given a free email address using the domain name of the ISP. Many people use these as their primary email address. Here are five reasons why that is a bad idea and you should instead use a portable free email service like iCloud or Gmail, or get your own domain name.

Automation curves are what let you control volume over time for an individual track or an entire song in GarageBand. In addition to volume, you can also control panning and sound effects. Master Track automation curves let you control pitch and tempo as well.

Apple has started going after web sites that allow people to obtain iOS apps without paying for them. This week Apple started issuing take-down notices to sites that help people with jailbroken iOS devices get App Store apps for free. Apple faces many difficulties in helping app developers, since these sites are mostly outside of the U.S. and can move and change easily.
Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, was knighted this week by the Queen of England. Ive is the talent behind many of Apple’s recent designs, including many iMacs and MacBooks, the iPhone and iPad.

“I want to get that new novel, but I can’t decide on the format.”
“You mean hard cover or paperback?”
“What is this 2010? I mean iPad, Kindle, Nook or audio book.”

If you own multiple iOS devices you may want each one to be able to receive its own messages and FaceTime video calls. This is handy if you have kids with their own iPods or iPads, but they are too young to have their own Apple ID. You need to specify special email accounts to be used by the Messages and FaceTime apps so you can contact that specific iOS device without all of your devices getting the message.

What can we expect from Apple in 2012? Gary makes some predictions and criticizes some rumors.

Review the year in Apple news: Mac App Store, iPad 2, iOS 5, Lion, iPhone 4S, iCloud, Steve Jobs and more.

With no official news from Apple to report, tech journalists have filled the gap by reporting this week on ever rumor they could find. But it is important to remember that most Apple rumors turn out to be wrong, except for the parts that are obvious. For instance, there surely will be an iPad 3, but when it will come out and what features it will have are merely speculation.
The iPad 3 rumors peg the release date of such a device as anywhere from January to April. Most rumors mention a high-resolution retina display, like the iPhone. However, a large 10-inch retina display may be too expensive to produce in the iPad’s price range. Other rumors talk of a 7-inch iPad variant, which is also unlikely given Apple’s insistence that a 10-inch screen is ideal, and poor reviews of other 7-inch tablets.
Many rumors this month have centered around an Apple Television. An “iTV” has been rumored for years, helped along by the existence of the set-top Apple TV device and parts being made for Apple computer displays and iMacs. Mentions of a television in the Steve Jobs biography are the main fuel for these rumors, but it would be a strange move for Apple to enter such a crowded low-margin business.

“If you throw the parakeet at your brother one more time I’m going to take your iPod touch away once and for all!”

A third grade class in Culver City, California is looking to get an iMac so they can produce and edit movies. They are using old G4 iMacs and really need something newer to let the kids be more creative. Join MacMost in supporting this project.