Apple news was dominated this week by the release of a beta version of the next version of Safari. This new version features faster JavaScript, the programming language behind dynamic elements all over the Web. It also has a 3D view of favorite sites, cover flow view for history and bookmarks, and is integrated with Google’s smart search service. The later will show you suggestions as you type a search term.
The release wasn’t painless, however, as many people are complaining of problems with Mail after installing Safari 4. You can see some of these new features on this episode of MacMost Now.
Apple also started something new in the iTunes music store with iTunes Pass. It is similar to purchasing a season pass for a TV show on iTunes. But instead of TV episodes, you get new and sometimes exclusive content from a band over the course of several months. The first iTunes Pass features Depeche Mode.
Looks like there will be a Mac OS X 10.5.7 soon, as developers seem to have been given a copy of the new version of Leopard to test. No word still on a release for 10.6, or Snow Leopard.
Looks like Apple is finally feeling an effect of the recession. One research firm says that Mac sales fell six percent in January, most likely due to the economy. But on the other hand, a traffic analysis of mobile phone Internet traffic shows that the iPhone now owns 51% of all smartphone traffic on the net. Part of that is probably due to the fact that iPhone users simply access the Internet much more through the full-featured Safari browser and other net-related apps.
The new 17-inch MacBook Pros started shipping this last week, slightly delayed from their original date, and lagging a good month behind the 15-inch MacBook Pros.
In rumors, the most interesting new rumor has Apple getting rid of the distinction between the QuickTime Player and QuickTime Pro. Currently, you need to pay $30 extra to upgrade from one to the other. The Pro version allows you to record, export and modify QuickTime movies.
The big news this week was the release of iLife 09, now selling in Apple stores. Every component of iLife has been updated, with new features like facial recognition and GPS location tags in iPhoto, precision editing and video effects in iMovie, and music lessons in GarageBand. A single copy costs $79 and a family pack costs $99.
The iPhone version of OS X got a minor update this week to 2.2.1 with bug fixes to make Safari more stable and some issues between Mail and the Camera Roll. Some rumors are flying around this week that Apple has already started testing the next generation of iPhone hardware. Other rumors point to 3G wireless connectivity in the next generation of MacBooks as well.
Apple was awarded a touch screen phone patent this week, essentially covering the basic features of the iPhone. This patent will strengthen Apple’s position in the mobile market and make it harder for other major mobile phone makers to compete by simply copying the functionality of the iPhone.
A smaller news item, but one very important to many, is the controversy over the new expensive Dual-Link DVI cable that Apple started selling. It is the only way to connect a new MacBook to a 30-inch monitor, which is a common setup for MacBook Pro users who have been able to do it directly from the MacBook Pro to the monitor in previous versions of the MacBook Pro. The $99 cable was delayed several months, and not it appears to have flaws that make it unusable for many. Apple released a video driver update that may fix the problem, but they also now claim that the connector is only for Apple 30-inch displays and not others, changing the product description that was originally in place.
So far I’ve spent some time with GarageBand, iPhoto and iMovie. GarageBand is mostly a face-lift, iPhoto has two major new features, and iMovie has both new features and a face-lift.
You can finally start GarageBand without having to get rid of that Grand Piano track. The music loops have moved to the right side of the interface, and the whole interface seems to have taken a step toward iMovie and the other iLife applications. At the start of the iLife suite, GarageBand was certainly the odd one out in terms of looks, but now it fits in better.
I also found the interface to be a bit more solid. The guesswork of hitting the track segment corners to loop a track or trim it now seem a little more definite. You’ve also got more well-defined ringtones options when you start GarageBand. I didn’t get to try out the lessons yet.
iPhoto’s two new features are locations and faces. The locations feature is interesting. Of course, the only photos I have that have a location are the ones I’ve taken with my iPhone since upgrading to the iPhone 3G. But it was kinda fascinating. I zoomed in on my home city and saw pins everywhere, in places I didn’t recognize. But as I clicked on them I rediscovered photos: oh, yea, the trip to the zoo. And that’s the time we went to that restaurant, etc.
I did struggle for a bit with a photo that was misplaced. I had to go deep into the interface and create a custom location for that photo to correct it. Glad I didn’t have any more of those.
The faces features really impressed me. You start off by letting it process your entire library to prepare it for faces. It took about 30 minutes for my collection. Then you select a photo and see the faces outlined in it. You pick a face and give it a name. Then you go to a screen where it tries to find that person in other photos. But it zeroes in on their faces, so a glance is all you need to decide. You just click once for yes, twice for no. Then when you complete the list, it gets an even better idea of who that person is. So you do it again. And again. In minutes you’ve tagged hundreds of photos. And it’s fun! In the end, you’ve tagged all your photos quickly and easily.
iMovie is a big one for me. I use iMovie to make the MacMost video podcast. So any major changes could have a drastic effect on my work.
But I’m happy to say that everything from iMovie 08 seems to work in iMovie 09. So no harm done. It does take a few extra clicks to change projects, which I do a lot to copy and paste pieces, but not a big deal.
The new precision editor is nice, though only a slight improvement over the clip trimmer that was already there. The video effects is a big new feature, though I hope there is some way to add new effects, or third-party effects. The image stabilization feature is very nice, and the perfect complement to owning a simple camera like the Flip that doesn’t have built-in image stabilization.
The maps feature is a curious one. You can pick a style of globe or flat map and then one or two locations. It will then animate a line drawn between the locations, also rotating the globe. It is interesting, but there are only a few styles so pretty soon these will be recognizable as “iMovie maps” and only useful in home video DVDs, and not presentations or anything semi-professional.
In general I like the changes in iMovie and I’m glad to see it getting better without being totally remade like last time.
