I have an update to bring you on yesterday’s post about a tent showing up outside the temporary location of the Knox Street Apple Store in Dallas, Texas. Thanks to some guest reporting by David Collins we have been able to confirm that the guy inside the tent is Justin Wagoner. Justin has made a bit of a name for himself online by being first in line for several Apple launches.

The one big question we had was “Why”? Justin simply said he was on spring break and it would be an adventure. He told us he expected lines to start forming sometime Wednesday and that he set up camp around 9:30 AM Sunday morning (3/6/2011). Another reason we’re guessing Justin is in line for this event is that he doesn’t own an original iPad. Last year when it was released he said he saw the iPad as a luxury accessory, so we asked him about his change of heart for this launch. Justin mentioned that the iPad was an unknown quantity and there just weren’t that many apps specifically designed for it. The iPad’s growing popularity, actually using one at the Apple Store on Knox Street, and the now over 65,000 apps seem to have changed his mind. Justin can now see a real case for the utility of an iPad. Despite his launch day enthusiasm for some Apple products, Justin is a bit more reserved for others. He did not buy the first generation iPhone until a few months after its release.

This will be the 4th iOS product launch event where Justin has been first in line. Whatever his motivation for sure it ends up grabbing attention. For past events Justin has received news coverage from local Dallas news affiliates, CNN, Yahoo!, and others. He also has a web site set up at ijustinofficial.com and is posting updates on twitter, @iJustinOfficial

Special thanks to David Collins for the photos and helping with coverage for this piece

It’s over 4 days before Apple will begin selling the iPad 2 (sales start at 5:00 PM PST this Friday). Apparently hasn’t stopped someone (see picture above) form getting in line early, real early. Maccast listener David sent me this snapshot of a tent apparently already outside a temporary Apple Store location in Texas. The Knox Street Apple store is closed for renovations, so they have set-up shop around the corner on McKinney, Avenue. We don’t know for sure yet, but it’s a good guess that guy inside the tent is famous Apple line sitter Justin Wagoner. Justin if you remember got a lot of press for being first in line for the iPhone 4 days before it went on sale. There have been rumors that initial shipments of iPad 2′s might be lower than Apple had wanted due to supply constraints, but I doubt you’d need to line up now to get one. My guess is Justin just really likes the attention and we’re happy to give him some.

Update: Updated with photo credit and new image

Photo: David Collins

Until it’s removed, here is the link to the listing on the French Amazon.com site.

Update: Added HD (720p) version below for comparison.

Above is a sample movie I created 100% on the new iPhone 4. I used the iPhone 4′s built in front and rear facing cameras to capture stills and video. I used Apple’s new iMovie for iPhone App to edit and assemble the clips and add the transitions, titles, and audio. Finally the video was exported to the Camera Roll and uploaded directly to YouTube via the device. The whole project took about 2 hours or so to complete and was actually quite simple to put together. As you can see the final results are pretty good, but there is room for improvement. First. I don’t have steady hands and I think a tripod or something to stabilize the phone as I shot the video would have been a great help. As for the audio, I used the built-in “theme” track. In the app there was no indication of the length of the track. When enabled it simply created a green “tack line” under my video timeline and the line extended the full length of my video project. I naturally assumed it was long enough or would loop to cover my whole project. When previewing in edit mode in the app it even played the audio throughout the project. It was only after export that I discovered the track simply faded out at the end, around a minute or so in. There is no option to loop the track and you can only have one such “background” track per project. You can however also include the recorded audio from each clip over the background audio if you choose and it will even auto-duck the background track. Finally, the video exported to the Camera Roll on the iPhone is output at 720p (1280 x 720). Unfortunately, uploading to YouTube directly from the iPhone only yields a maximum resolution of 568 x 320. I assume this is why the YouTube above maxes out at 360p. Even so I think that all of this can be done on a phone. Just so you can get a comparison, I do plan to upload a 720p version polished up in iMovie on my Mac so you can see what the iPhone is fully capable of. Stay tuned.

Here is the 720p version as promised. It is still exactly the same version produced and exported entirely on the iPhone. The only change is a new music track I added in iMovie on the Mac since the iPhone version couldn’t be looped.

So it looks like the “issue” can be replicated on not only the new iPhone 4, but also on a 3G or 3GS iPhone. What remains now is to determine if this is simply a visual issue or if reception is truly being affected. Early reports seem to indicate that calls continue even with the diminished bars on the display which is a good sign. Either way I’m sure these reports will grab Apple’s attention and shed some light on what seem to be a long standing issue. Hopefully we’ll also see an fix issued soon.

Checkout the email being sent out this morning to pre-order customers:

Dear Apple Store Customer,

You recently received a Shipment Notification email from Apple advising you that your iPhone has shipped.

This email is to confirm that your delivery will occur on June 23rd. Although Apple and FedEx tracking information may currently indicate a later date, you can check the FedEx website the morning of the June 23rd to track your package to your doorstep.

In the event that you will not be available to accept delivery on June 23rd, it may be more convenient to use our pre-sign delivery option by visiting our Order Status website at http://www.apple.com/orderstatus.

Sincerely,

The Apple Store Team

So I guess that date was correct. What is not clear at this point is why Apple bumped up the date. A logical guess is that there are concerns over the volume of activations and they may be trying to spread the load between at home deliveries and in-store pick-up which will still take place on the 24th.

I’m glad that many of you will be getting your new iPhones a day early, but I do have to mention this will likely create some outcry from those who weren’t able to get their pre-orders through Apple and AT&T’s systems. Either way I expect Thursday and (now) Wednesday will be both exciting and frustrating for Apple fans.

Thanks to listener Bob for the tip off

It’s seems to be a magnetic switch that activating to put the Macbook Pro to sleep when the lid is closed. If you take a paper clip and place it about 1/3 of the way down the right edge of the Macbook Pro screen it will stick to it. There are also a bunch of magnets along the top edge of the screen, but those appear to be there just to hold the Macbook Pro lid shut when it’s closed.

The sleep switch also seems to be magnetic and about the same distance down along the right edge of the Macbook Pro top case just behind the right speaker grill. It does appear to be a little further in, more toward the keyboard so I assume it gets pulled out to the edge when you close the lid activating the switch. Now the key to triggering it with the iPad is to place the back of the iPad, specifically the area just under the iPad speaker holes, over that section of the Macbook Pro. Viola! The Macbook Pro should go to sleep. I believe it’s the magnets in the iPad speakers that act like the magnets in the Macbook Pro lid and cause the Macbook Pro to think you shut just the lid effectively putting it to sleep. No mystery, no magical forces, just science.

Maccast listener Connor really deserves the credit for discovering this quirk. He emailed me about 3 weeks ago to say he was seeing this behaviour when he got an iPhone 3GS near that part of a 15″ Macbook Pro. At the time I couldn’t repeat the behaviour, but I was able to confirm this with my 15″ Macbook Pro and my 32GB Wi-Fi iPad.

When I ran the same video after installing the “Gala” build of Flash I saw a significant drop in CPU usage. The CPU load hovered between 30 and 40%, roughly about a 50 to 60% decrease in load. I also didn’t have my fans kick in.

With “Gala”, you can tell when the Flash hardware decoding has kicked in by the appearance of a small white square in the corner of the video. Adobe says that in addition to improved playback of H.264 video the hardware enhanced version of Flash should also result in improved battery life. Might be welcome benefit for long Hulu video watching sessions when away from a power outlet.

To be fair I also switch YouTube over to the HTML 5 beta and tested the same video at 720p. Again in my very non-scientific benchmark test I noted that Safari’s CPU load went up to about 20% with the video playing.

10:04:20.5. I would say that is meeting Apple’s stated tech specs. I did have Wi-Fi on the whole time and I did a variety of tasks from reading books and watching video to surfing the web and reading RSS feeds. As a bonus I also wrote this blog post using the WordPress app for iPad. Typing on the on-screen keyboard is amazingly good (if not a little messy). So, in addition to the amazing battery life I’m finding that the iPad is also a very capable alternative to my Macbook Pro when I want a more agile and lighter weight alternative.

And oh, in case your wondering about charging time. Using the included 10W USB Power Adapter I was able to go from 0 to 100% charge in approximately 4 hours.

“MacSpeech responded to the growing demand for a native Macintosh, high-quality speech recognition solution with MacSpeech Dictate integrated with the Dragon speech recognition engine,” said Andrew Taylor, president of MacSpeech. “We are excited to become part of the Nuance team and accelerate our ability to deliver great speech solutions to the Mac community.”

The good news is that it sounds like Nuance plans to use the acquisition to increase the research and development of products in their line that are specifically designed and developed for the Mac, iPhone, iPod ( and hopefully iPad) lines. The people at MacSpeech have long been big supporters of the Mac community and I wish them the best of luck moving forward.

You can find more information on the acquisition on the Nuance Communications site, http://www.nuance.com/macspeech

A quick video unboxing the new iPod nano.

New 3G iPhone Hardware

Memory Capacity: 8GB & 16 GB

Colors: Black and White (White = 16GB option only, unclear if 16GB comes in black as well)

Frequencies: UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); WiFi 802.11b/g; Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR.

Screen Size: 3.5 inches (diagonal), 480 by 320 pixels (163 ppi).

Dimensions: 4.5 by 2.4 by 0.48 inches (115.5 by 62.1 by 12.3 mm)

Camera: 2.0 megapixels

Location Services: Assisted-GPS, previous cell tower and WiFi geolocation services from previous generation iPhone.

The big change is the high-speed 3G data connection, which Apple claims approaches the speeds of WiFi, and for some websites some 2.4 times faster than the original iPhone’s EDGE speeds.

iPhone Software

Besides the hardware specs, there are a number of new anticipated software changes, most of which will be available to current iPhone and iPod touch users via a software upgrade, due in early July. We’ve heard before about the Exchange Server and ActiveSync synchronization to keep your calendar, contacts and emails up to date over the air with your iPhone. Now, the new version of .Mac, called mobileme, will empower the average consumer a number of the same synchronizing functionality, for $99/year, all contacts, calendars, emails, and photos synchronized with the “cloud.”

The iPhone’s Mail app is also upgraded, and lets the the user select multiple messages to delete or move, and can also now view PowerPoint and all iWork (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers) documents. The iPhone’s contacts are also now searchable, so you don’t have to scroll through all of your contacts to find the right person. The Calculator app is now scientific, the new functions reveal themselves when the iPhone is tilted on its side. Language support is also significantly improved, allowing for simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, and Japanese language support through new keyboard and character recognition input controls.

Last, but probably the most significant software addition to the iPhone platform is the App Store. The App Store allows for third party developers to create and distribute applications to iPhone owners. Apple announced that applications under 10MB could be downloaded over the cellular network and WiFi, and those over 10MB would be available over WiFi only. Apple also announced two additional ways for developers to distribute their apps, via the enterprise via a company’s network or “ad hoc,” which allows for the download of up to 100 copies of an app.

Additionally, it was noted that Apple will be providing developers with a specialized push messaging service, one that would permit applications to receive information from the Internet without having to run in the background. My first take is that while this may be a good thing to prevent the draining of an iPhones battery, it could be problematic from a competitive gateway point of view, as application developers would be required to go through Apple to pass along messages to their app (especially since other apps like Mail have this information automatically pushed without this kind of service, today). I’m sure this new service will be discussed in the days and weeks to come.

That’s the quick and dirty. I’m sure there will be more details soon enough.

Nova Media today announced introduction of a new version of their FoneLink app, version 2.0, which gives Mac users a really nice tool to keep their mobile phone in sync with contacts, calendar, and media—in ways that iSync can’t. If you know how iTunes lets you sync with your iPhone or iPod, this is the closest thing to it.

FoneLink encapsulates a suite of useful tools beyond the traditional syncing that iSync provides. If your phone supports it, you can sync your contacts, calendars, bookmarks, and notes, and FoneLink allows you to fine tune how you’d like each to sync, separately. This info pulls in from your Address Book or Entourage.

Also synced are your text messages, as the app lets you archive old messages and enables you to send new ones through your mobile phone via FoneLink. Remember when Apple’s own Address Book used to let you do that?

FoneLink has a simple Finder that lets you browse your phone’s contents, as well as memory cards that your phone might have plugged into it. You can drag and drop files and folders to the phone and back.

The Media Center lets you sync music, photos and video to your phone, from iTunes or other files that you drag and drop into the app. The Media Center lets you pick from iTunes playlists or your entire library of songs and videos. Well, what if your phone doesn’t support a specific kind of file type? Media Center seems to know the capabilities of each supported phone, and, with your permission it can convert the files to compatible versions for your phone. You can also instruct it to just sync the ones that are playable, without converting, and leave it at that. I haven’t tested this out, but I don’t think that the Media Center will convert any iTunes DRM’d content, so unless you’ve got all iTunes Plus tracks or stuff you’ve ripped from elsewhere, you might hit a snag here. But blame DRM, not Nova Media.

Photos sync as well, and you can have them automatically resize to match the resolution of your screen—FoneLink already knows the right size for your specific phone.

Media Center also has a ringtone creator. I know I’ve heard from a lot of people that wish they could make snippets of songs into ringtones and save them to their phone—this functionality of Media Center might be worth the price of admission alone for some.

Last but not least is the Time Tunnel. Nova Media wants you to think of this like Time Machine for your phone—and they even embrace celestial background. Essentially what Time Tunnel does is saves snapshots of your phone’s contents—everything including contacts, events, media and your SMS inbox. You can go back and find specific files that you had on your phone, and restore them back.

There are some great screencasts that do a better job explaining FoneLink’s functionality than I ever could.

Some phones FoneLink will support over bluetooth and USB, and if you’re synchronizing a lot of media files, you’re going to want to do things over USB. Some phones have varying compatibility as well, and you can check specifics out here. But generally, if you have one of the following phones, you’re in luck:

Motorola:
KRZR (K1), RAZR V3, RAZR V3x, RAZR V3xx, RAZR V6, RIZR Z3, SLVR L9,

Nokia:
2600 classic, 2760, 3109 classic, 3110 classic, 3120 classic, 3250, 3500 classic, 3555, 5200, 5300, 5310 XpressMusic, 5500, 5610 XpressMusic
5700 XpressMusic, 6021, 6085, 6086, 6110 Navigator, 6111, 6120 classic, 6121 classic, 6124 classic, 6125, 6126, 6131, 6133, 6136, 6151, 6165, 6210 Navigator, 6220 classic, 6233, 6234, 6263, 6267, 6270, 6275, 6280, 6282, 6288, 6290, 6300, 6301, 6500 classic, 6500 slide, 6555, 7070 Prism, 7370, 7373, 7390, 7500 Prism, 7900 Prism, 8600 Luna, 8800 Sirocco, 9300, 9300i, 9500, E50, E51, E60, E61, E61i, E62, E65, E70, E90 Communicator, N71, N73, N75, N76, N77, N78, N80, N81, N82, N91, N92, N93, N93i, N95, N95 8GB, N96

Samsung:
SGH-A737, SGH-D840, SGH-E900, SGH-F300, SGH-G800, SGH-i550, SGH-i560, SGH-L760, SGH-P310, SGH-U700, SGH-X830
SGH-Z150, SGH-Z400, SGH-Z720

Sony Ericsson:
D750i, K320i, K510i, K530i, K550i, K610i, K660i, K700i, K750i, K770i, K790i, K800i, K810i, K850i, S500i, S700i, T650, V600i, V630i, V640i, W300i, W350i, W380i, W550i, W580i, W600i, W610i, W660i, W710i, W760i, W800i, W810i, W830i, W850i, W880i, W890i, W900i, W910i, W980i, Z310i, Z520i, Z550i, Z555i, Z610i, Z710i, Z750i, Z770i, Z800i

If one of the phones above is yours and you want to give FoneLink a try, there’s a demo version here. If you decide to keep it, one license will set you back $33.57, three licenses will be $67.14 and five licenses will cost you $100, all plus VAT tax (Nova Media is a German company located in Berlin). A direct link to the purchase page is here.

Instant Messaging: There are a few options here but Meebo easily provides the best experience. It is essentially the same as the other options, however with Meebo you can use your existing account to log into multiple IM accounts at the same time. This however has a secondary purpose that makes it so great. When you’re instant messing with Edge there is a good chance you will get disconnected and miss parts of the conversation. Meebo enables logging when you sign up for an account, so you never miss any part of any conversation, and can refer back to it  at any time. http://meebo.com – automatically loads iPhone version upon visit.

Photo sharing: A sometimes forgotten feature of Flickr, Ringo, and other photo sites is the ability to add photos via e-mail. While this method isn’t as snazzy as iFlickr, you do have options of sending your photos with titles, descriptions, tags, and privacy settings. For your own e-mail upload addresses check in your Flickr or Ringo tools section. I suggest adding them as contacts with simple name like “flickr public” and “flickr friends.”

Netflix: While the iPhone does provide full access to the web, some sites are just a pain to navigate in a small screen. Netflix does not have an iPhone specific mobile site, but they do have a plain Jane one that allows full queue management and search functionality. The only drawback with using this site outside of it not looking pretty, is the lack of a webclip icon. https://www.netflix.com/Mobile/Login

Movie Times: Fandango and MovieTickets both have iPhone sites, but you may find them unintuitive and clunky, taking too long to find a movie in your area. Google however has a less pretty, but much faster solution – which is all the more important when you’re not on a WiFi network. Enter your zip and it shows movies, average ratings and reviews, and links to purchase tickets for multiple theaters in the area. http://www.google.com/movies?sc=1&hl=en&near=&rl=1

Your other option is Cinema – A newer webapp I switched to just today that has a great interface and is slightly easier to read than Google Showtimes. The drawback in comparison is the lack of reviews and IMDB links. http://themacbox.co.uk/iphone/cinema/

TV Times: A simple TV Guide is exactly what it claims to be. It allows you to sort by day or channels, change time zones easily, and search for specific shows. http://tv.comoki.com

Games: Unfortunately the nature of web apps limits the control you have for gaming in a browser, so you cannot expect much more than puzzle games and Myst-like point and tap adventures. There are  plenty of TicTacToe games and the like, but frankly it’s silly to do those games on iPhone when you can use a napkin or piece of paper without any load times. I find iSudoku, iPipes, and Bewjewled kill time the fastest in a doctors office or on the train.

Podcasting: To catch the latest podcasts without syncing your phone you can use Podcaster. You can add your favorites directly from your iTunes Library and find new podcasts within the app. The only downside of listening through your browser is that you cannot surf to other places while the file is playing. Some of my favorite podcasts are BuzzOutLoud, Gadgettes, Cranky Geeks and of course The MacCast (/shameless plug). http://podcaster.soprotech.com/

Passwords: We’ve talked about it many times, and now 1Password can sync to your iPhone and uses unique, secure bookmarks to autofill forms on websites. Your longwindedly secure passwords now don’t have to be typed out! 1Password has an extremely generous trial and is very affordable.

That’s all for now. I will follow up soon with more web apps and tips for making the most out of your iPhone. As as side note, users who bank with Bank of America have an amazing web app that gives you access to your account and finds ATM locations. Definitely worth checking out, even if you use another bank. The side is so good it makes me want to switch over from Commerce.

Today, Psystar tried to put all naysayers to rest by posting this video on their web site. They claim it shows their Open Computers running OS X Leopard, Ubuntu 8, and Windows Xp Professional. Now I am not refuting their claims, but as I watched the video I did notice some things that seem just too wonky not to point out. Besides I always love a good conspiracy theory.

As the video opens we see the alleged Open Computer running OS X on the far left. There is a bundle of small cables under the desk below the system and it looks like they are probably Ethernet cables. Nothing too unusual but, as you will see, they later seem to disappear. Even more unusual is the space below the desk on the right where there is an empty wire rack shelf system. Note that at this point in the video there seems to be nothing there. Also note that the area to the right of the display is empty. These two points will become significant later.

As the camera pans right we see the Ubuntu machine and the Windows box. Both have several cables coming out the side of the computer and running to the right toward the monitor.

Now notice the Mac system… no cables coming off to the right like with the Ubuntu and PC systems. Also notice that the bundle of Ethernet-like cables pointed out in the opening scene no longer seem to be visible.

Next the video transitions into showing the Open Computer supposedly running Leopard and the Mac version of Quake 4. What is interesting in this shot is there now seems to be an extra cable running from the right of the monitor toward the area of the desk where the empty wire shelf system sits. That shelf is also no longer empty as it looks like it now has a strange blue box sitting on it. At first I thought the cable near the monitor might be the mouse cable, but in the Quake demo scene you can clearly see the mouse cable moving with this mysterious second cable above it. The thicker cable does seem to be the monitor cable and it is going off to the right not the left. Remember, the Open Computer that is supposed to be running OS X Leopard is to the left of the monitor, not the right. Interesting.

Finally, the closing shot shows the exterior of the Psystar offices. When reports of Psystar and their Open Computer (initially called the Open Mac) first surfaced on the web, several reports noted that they changed their address as many as 3 times. Now that fact alone is strange enough, but throw in a phone number with an oddly high number of 6′s, plus the fact that they seem to want to keep things private and you have the makings of a full blown conspiracy.

Can someone ring up Fox and see if he is available to come down to Florida?

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Today is the last day in My Oovoo Day, which might more accurately been named My Oovoo Couple of Weeks. What is Oovoo? Does the post office deliver mail on My Oovoo Day?

Oovoo is a new video chatting application that is available for Mac and Windows. It allows up to 6 people to have a video chat at the same time in a display that has been compared (by people like me who watched too much TV in their formative years) to the opening credits of Brady Bunch or the grid for Hollywood Squares.

My Oovoo Day was a cleaver marketing strategy to get promotional buzz for the software. The organizers of My Oovoo Day gathered a number of popular bloggers and podcasters and arranged for them to hold a series of chats. You could then sign up for one of up to 5 slots for each chat. As expected the bloggers and podcasters promoted the day. I signed up to chat with John Wall of Marketing Over Coffee, CC Chapman from Managing the Grey (and Accident Hash) and Mitch Joel from Six Pixels of Separation. Because of problems with the My Oovoo Day event, I was only able to get into the chat with John Wall (the email confirmation apparently got eaten by my spam filter and you could neither cancel a registration nor register again to chat with the same person) but these were independent of the Oovoo software.

The event itself was interesting. I had not chatted with John before. The software was still pretty green. I was using a Mac and had to do an update to a new version on the day of the even before anyone could hear me. I crashed at least once so this still seems like Beta software. The audio worked well. The video did not keep up but that seemed to depend on the bandwidth of each user.

Bottom line, Oovoo is worth looking at for a small group video chat. The idea of doing an event like My Ooovoo Day is also worth looking at as a model of how to promote a new product, but… it would be better to wait until the product was a little more ready for prime time.

Chris Christensen is the host of the Amateur Traveler podcast

Liquid Ledger allows you to import/export multiple file times, including Quicken’s Interchange Format and more generic options to make compatibility a strong point. As mentioned earlier there is a great overview feature, included with that is the ability to print out several types of financial report and graphs.

In terms of finance there really isn’t much that Liquid Ledger can’t do, but the real question is if you will be able to make use of the feature set. Liquid Ledger is definitely a great application for those who do a lot of in-depth personal or business finance, but if you’re looking for a more minimal, simplistic application see Cha-Ching, to be featured next week.

The developers at Modeless Software, Inc. have made a 60-Day Trial available for free with minimal nagging that I’d encourage anyone to give a try. You can find it at liquidledger.com.

Apple updated it’s web site this morning announcing updates to both the Macbooks and Macbook Pros. Both models has been updated with faster processors and larger hard drives. The Macbook Pros will now be available in models with processors running at up to 2.6GHz with 6MB of shared L2 cache and come with storage options up to 300GB. Most Macbook Pro models now will come standard with 2GB of RAM and use NVIDIA graphics processors with up to 512MB of video memory. The biggest news for the new Pro models however is they will come standard with the new Macbook Air style Multi-Touch track pad allowing them to use gestures just like their slimmer cousin.

The new Macbooks will offer processors ranging from 2.1 GHz and 2.4 GHz. The two white models now come in 2.1GHz or 2.4 GHZ versions with 120GB or 160GB hard drives. The black Macbook is offered up with a 2.4GB processor and a whopping 250GB hard drive. The 2.4GHz model also ships with 2GB of RAM and the Macbooks are upgradable to 4GB of RAM.

Available immediately, the new MacBook and MacBook Pro models start at just $1,099 and $1,999, respectively. Additional details and tech specs are available at Apple.com.

I’m twenty years old and a total geek, but I’ve only had owned mobile phone for about 3 weeks. My first phone was a V3 Razr, which was okay, but after owning the (hacked) iPod Touch and always thinking “I could click this number and call it if this were an iPhone” the Razr felt very limited. Even more so when browsing the web with the Opera browser or playing any games. Then came Sunday January 19th, the day I lost my iPod somewhere in New Jersey. The next day I went out and bought an iPhone.

Despite not owning a mobile in the past, I have spent quality time with Treos, Razrs, various Motorala models, and the iPhone. So my post isn’t completely without merit and experience. Browsing the web on those phones does not at all compare to the experience Safari provides on the iPhone. I would go so far to say that for the average consumer the only advantage they have are physical buttons, which allow you to dial numbers without looking when you’re driving… which we all do despite how dangerous it is. So in my fanboyish way I’ll check that off as Apple looking out for my safety.

A large portion of complaints I’ve heard are fixed, fixable, or just trivial. SMS messaging and overall performance of the phone has been greatly improved with the recent 1.1.3 update. The Software Development Kit (SDK) will be providing us with plenty of third party software without any hacks. Edge may not be the fastest, but isn’t nearly as slow as some people would have you think. iPhone does not sync with iTunes over the air, record video, send pictures and video messages to other phones, copy and paste, work with Exchange, have an easily replaceable battery, or have a slot for adding more memory. But the question I asked myself before buying was if I, or anyone, really needs those things.

Some complaints are like the lack of Exchange support are completely legitimate and crippling to some business customers. However the majority of complaints can, and likely will be fixed in future updates. The fact that the battery is not accessible to consumers is the biggest shame on Apple. If you’re going to spend 400 USD on a phone you should be able to access the battery without Apple/ATT getting involved. You will likely never seen an iPhone with a card slot to add a petty couple gigs of storage, and Apple has never released an iPod where you can easily access the battery. Perhaps this is just a train of thought we will have to get used to.

Apple has a decent chat client on OS X with iChat, so why this wasn’t available to us on the iPhone at launch is beyond me. When looking at the overall picture the iPhone keeps you connected in every single way your Mac’s default software does except for instant messaging. Doubtless this will be addressed by Apple in the future or by a third party, but Instant Messaging was a standard part of mobile phones well before the iPhone came to the scene. I’ve used the web-based clients and they are nice, but a native iChat client would allow notifications and a lot more features. You could list loads of apps that should be on the iPhone, but given how third party applications are just around the corner there really isn’t a problem. (Though I must admit I painfully miss Labyrinth and themes.)

The biggest problem is if you’re using the iPhone on anything but a Mac it can be a totally different experience. iPhone really is designed around iLife, so even if it works without flaw you’re not getting the same experience a Mac user is. Telling it to sync with Outlook and “My Pictures” just isn’t as intuitive and smooth. For example take a look at the Apple support forums; you will see plenty more threads from Windows users begging for help than Mac users. I am one of those people. I only own a PC at the moment, there is a Mac mini in my house. The problems were so annoyingly painful I decided to just sync to the Mac Mini until I get my own Mac. There are literally dozens of threads on the Apple support forums with people asking for help with the same problems over and over, getting no replies. Even if it is a small portion of the user-base, these issues are understandably annoying. This is the collective fault of Apple and Microsoft I’m sure, but the responsibility in my eyes is with Apple to provide a complete experience for any operating system they support.

This all said, I’m still fresh with my iPhone. As time goes on and we see more updates and the first third party apps you can expect to hear from me again.

For those who have hacked their iPhone, Erica Sudun has put together another little gem of an app called Listen, that lets your iPhone identify songs that it hears playing on your radio, on the TV, or where ever.

Listen is in beta, and the version I’m using is “beta 06” which has a nicer push-button interface than initial releases, and some more useful functionality. Because it’s beta, I should say use it at your own risk—but that pretty much goes for any app you’ve installed on your hacked iPhone or iPod touch.

If you haven’t hacked your iPhone yet, directions to help you can be found here. You can download the Listen app from the Multimedia section of the iPhone Installer app, simply listed as “Listen”. After you do so, it’s going to be listen in your Springboard home screen with a purple icon. To start it, just tap on the icon.

Once in the app, make sure you have some music is playing, from whatever source you have, so long as you can hear it and you can put your iPhone’s mic near it. Now, just tap on the big button and Listen will record a sample of the song. Shortly there after, Listen will do its thing and go out to server to compare the sample to a known database that it uses to identify the track.

Within about 30 seconds, you should have a listing of the track’s information, including the track name, artist, and album. New in this version of Listen is the ability to send that information to whoever you’d like in an email.

It’s a clever use of the iPhone’s capabilities and a great display of what independent developers can do on this amazing platform. Never again to you have to go on listening to the radio, not knowing who sings a specific song. Also, if you hear a song on you love the radio but don’t yet have it in your library, you can email the track info to yourself as a reminder to pick it up the next time you connect (or search for it in the Mobile iTunes Store if you’re on WiFi).

Check out the Listen app now and help give Erica some feedback to make it an even better app.

Apple today announced that the entire line of Mac Pros will now come standard with two 4 core Intel Xeon Processors. That’s a total of 8 cores starting at USD$2,799.00. One hell of a lot of power. The baseline system now specs out with Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Harpertown” processors, 2GB memory (800MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC), ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics with 256MB memory, a 320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive, and a 16x double-layer SuperDrive. Build to order options will allow you to take the processors up to 3.2GHz and bump the graphics card to a 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT or a 1.5GB Quadro FX 5600.

Now this announcement is cool and all, but the real interesting thing here is the timing. Apple typically does these quiet bumps during Macworld. This announcement has come a week early which in my mind says one of two things (maybe both). One, they wanted to get an announcement out this week and steal a little press from CES or two, Macworld is going to be HUGE in 2008. I can’t wait for next week.

If like me, you have become addicted to Twitter, then you should check out the TwitterPod application for the Mac.

If you have been living in a cave, twitter is a web based server that allows people to “micro blog”. You can enter any text that will fit in a 140 character limit. Twitter updates (or tweets) can also be delivered to your cell phone if you so desire. People twitter about blog articles they have written, what they have had for breakfast or words of wisdom as long as it fits in 140 characters. Many podcasters and bloggers have started to use twitter because you can send updates to a set of people who follow you but follow the updates, potentially, of a completely different set of people. Adam twitters at maccast (sometimes) and I (my podcast is the Amateur Traveler) twitter at chris2x.

The best twitter updates I received (or wrote) yesterday:

acedtect Happy Arbitrary Roman-derived change of annual enumeration.
leolaporte Turkish coffee and a flight to Aswan where we meet the Sun Boat IV. Sarkozy and Blair are in town, snarling the traffic.
chris2x just a thought, when Clark Kent gets new frames, does anyone recognize him?
scottsimpson For the record, a certain part of my anatomy has also been compared to a baby’s arm: my arm.
hotdogsladies GoDaddy’s checkout is like a hallway of Marines trying to hit you with a sock full of pennies. “Ow! Quit it! Don’t need ‘WebSite Tonight!!’”
CaliLewis “When we honor the potato, we honor ourselves.” Just heard it on NPR.
Ihnatko The fonts I bought from Comicraft for $20.08 each (with one freebie plus a $16 discount…details in post): http://tinyurl.com/3d36aq

And if those literary gems make you more interested in Twitter than as a Mac user one program that I would recommend is TwitterPad which has a clean interface and growl notification. It also highlights the last post you read (you can read URLs posted in a pop out panel) so it makes it easy to tell what posts are new.

Let the tweats begin.

MobileCast is a native iPhone app, not a web app. So, at least until Apple puts out their SDK, you’re going to need to jailbreak your iPhone / iPod Touch to install this app. If you’re running a recent version of the Installer.app, MobileCast can be found in the Multimedia category. Tap to install it, like any other app. After you exit the installer, MobileCast’s icon should be located on your Springboard (the home app menu).

When you launch the app, you’ll first need to add some RSS feeds in. Unfortunately, this process hasn’t been streamlined yet, so you’re going to have to manually type in each podcast feed or point the app to an opml file with all your feeds. This is pretty tedious, but hey, that’s what having a full keyboard on your phone is for, right?

After you’ve typed in a few podcasts feeds, save them, and you’ll see them listed by name in the main screen. Tap on a podcast and you’ll get a long list of all the episodes you can choose to download. Select one and tap the “download” button and you’ll get a progress bar showing how much you’ve got downloaded. If you’re running on the EDGE network, this will probably take some time, so you’re probably better off doing this on a WiFi network. But, unlike the Mobile iTunes Store, at least you have the option to get content when you’re out of WiFi range.

After you’ve successfully downloaded an episode, the red dot next to the episode will turn green. Select it and you’ll see the “download” button switches to “play.” When you hit play, the episode plays in MobileCast itself, showing the cover art of the episode. At the bottom you’ll see a time slider and a pause/play button. It’s a lot like the iPod player, but missing some features like volume control (the hardware buttons on the iPhone should work fine, but those on the iPod touch might be out of luck with this version of the software) and the ability to skip ahead to different chapters in the podcast. Also, like many of the 3rd party iPhone apps, MobileCast doesn’t yet respect the mute switch on the side of the iPhone.

The current released version of MobileCast can only playback audio podcasts, however, a beta version is supposed to playback video. Hopefully that feature as well as some of the control issues will be addressed soon.

If you’re dying to download podcasts on your iPhone or iPod Touch just like you download emails or webpages, you should give MobileCast a try. If you like it a lot, you might throw Matthew a few bucks toward Matthew via PayPal so he can continue development.

I thought the website would be terribly ugly, full of ads, and html from the 1990s, but the website is clean, and a little bit ajaxy. It is only spoiled by a few ads here and there. My next reservation would be platform restrictions. I have 9 computers, none of them windows, so that would pose a problem. You can imagine the look on my face when I clicked on a link, and it just worked! How novel! I searched and a lot of my favorite TV shows were there. So far so good, then it came time to watch an episode.

I had many preconceptions about the viewing experience including, but not limited to: the ads, the quality, and the loading time. I found the ads, while somewhat annoying were fine. And the best part about them is that you can see exactly where the ad is in the general time line of the show. There are 2 ads per 30 minute show, not including preroll ads. Each ad is 60 seconds long and is ignorable. The quality isn’t bad either, while it isn’t HD (yet),it is far better than anything that I have seen on YouTube. And yes, the loading time is nice and fast.

Now it is time to tackle the naysayers. And while I have negated almost all of their complaints, I left out one. The issue about downloading. This is a non-issue for me. Whenever I bought a TV show on iTunes, I would watch it once or twice, then I would never watch it again. I would start to notice how much space it was it was taking up on my iPhone/iPod/MacBook/PowerBook’s HD. I wanted to delete it, but then I would feel bad that I wasted money, and besides what if I wanted to watch it again? Now I can rest safely knowing that the content is on Hulu’s servers.
I was never a TV fan. When I was a baby, I would rather read than watch TV. Even now, I don’t have a TV let alone cable. And because of all the mentioned reasons, Hulu is perfect for me.

Crossblogged from my website: http://freecasts.net

Guitar Hero is a REALLY great game, and you can now jam comfortably in front of your Mac.

Here are the specs for those who wish to jam:

In the box

* Guitar Hero 3 software
* Guitar Hero X-Plorer wireless guitar controller
* Guitar strap

System Requirements

* Mac OS X v10.4.10 or v10.5 or later
* 2GHz or faster Intel Core Duo processor (2.33GHz recommended); does not support PowerPC processors
* 1GB RAM (2GB recommended)
* 6.1GB free hard-disk space (5.1GB + 1GB swap file)
* Video card: ATI Radeon X1600 or nVidia GeForce 7300
* Video memory (VRAM): 128MB (256MB recommended)
* DVD-ROM drive
* Macintosh mouse and keyboard

As you can see it’s a bit processor and RAM reliant. If you have the power then rock on!

This is where GarageSale (http://iwascoding.com/GarageSale) comes in. If you have stuff that just has to go, and you like to use eBay, then this is the app you want to use. GarageSale is an all in one eBay selling app that takes you from the setting up your sale to feedback and completion. To give you an idea, I sold an item for this review and I am going to give you the play by play.

Setting up the application is really simple. Just give GarageSale your eBay information as it is an approved eBay application and needs to be linked, plus you can also link your PayPal information. Now you’re set!

I wanted to sell a video game, so I opened up GarageSale and chose one of the 124 listing designs, and they look fantastic. I chose “Spotlight”, which has a coverflow feel to it. GarageSale will host up to ten free images for my auctions, so I decided that route. You can also put an image up on Flickr or other service. The next part is where I placed the description of the item which will be displayed in the template that I chose. The software asked me for a listing price, category, sub-category, payment details, shipping costs, enhancements offered through eBay which cost extra(but they’re there), auction duration, and more. Finally, the best part, is to click the start auction button. The program gives you the listing fee before going to the next step which is nice, because who wants to pay $3.00 for a $0.50 item. Click again and it’s up and running.

Now say you have more items to sell, well just go ahead and create more. I set up an additional four auctions, and I track them in GarageSale. I never have to go to eBay again (unless I’m bargain hunting). You can track EVERYTHING in GarageSale. When you open it up just click the auction tabs, your items will be listed and have a little sticky as to what the bids are at, plus they’ll show you who is watching the item (those are potential buyers). Plus you can see the eBay listing within the program.

So I sold my game, YAY! Now I open up GarageSale and I open the auction that has ended. I want to get paid right? I enter the invoice portion of the screen and here it gives me some e-mail templates to use to send an invoice for the item. It uses Apple Mail automatically or any other mail app that you want and you mail it off. I wait for payment confirmation within the program, which then gives me the mailing address in the program, then I can leave feedback. Did I mention that I did this all within the program? So the sale is complete, both parties are happy and I did the whole thing within the comfort of GarageSale.

There are some really slick features that are once again for the power seller, but nonetheless neat. Here are a couple:
Built in Scheduler – Schedule when you want your auctions to start.
eBay Store Support – GarageSale will upload to your eBay store.
iPhoto Integration – You can pull images from iPhoto directly within GarageSale.

This is a great application for the power seller, but not really for the occasional one as the license costs US/EURO $29.99.

All in all this is a neat app that makes the auction selling experience a little less excruciating. I really liked it, and recommend it to anyone who has a lot of stuff to sell and wants to manage it.

TheGadgetLocker.com founder and president, Joe Ryan, says, “We want to thank and recognize our loyal customers by providing them with great prices and deals throughout the holiday season, and not just on a single day.”

TheGadgetLocker.com guarantees delivery by Dec 24th for anything purchased by Monday, Dec 17th, provided that the item is in stock. This makes Christmas shopping easy!

For more information and to take advantage of this holiday sale, visit TheGadgetLocker.com.

I tried the program on recommendation of a friend and at first found it nothing more than a “neat” app, but after making use of all its features I don’t see why they aren’t built into OS X already. If you do online banking, bill paying, or have any sensitive information stored on the web you’ll quickly see why 1Password is an essential component to the operating system.  

The problem with passwords is that they really should be complex, but we often are willing trade off security for something easy to remember. It doesn’t get any easier when you have more than one account on a website. 1Password not only remembers your existing passwords, but has an amazing GUI for creating insanely secure passwords. You can access all of these with a single master password.

  .Mac, iPhone, and Palm syncing allows you to bring these passwords with you easily wherever you go. And the security features include prevention from phishing scams and keyloggers. Even if these features may not at first look appealing to you, a use of the demo will almost surely sell you on it. Check out 1Password here, and don’t forget to watch the excellent Video Introduction.Available for $29.95 USD at 

1Passwd.com

I have heard a number of people express the opinion recently that Apple has changed the way that it announces products. This comes from the fact that Apple recently pre-announced two products, months in advance before you could even order them. The two products were the AppleTV and the iPhone. This has set the expectation for a number of people that they might learn about the next iPod or the next iMac in a similar pre-release fashion. This post is intended to discourage that expectation.

Let’s back up a bit and look at what this from Apple’s point of view. In general when Apple, or some other hardware company, releases a new product they are going through a product transition. So when they announce a new iPod they are trying to maximize how much money they make. A product transition has some risks for the company.

If they announce a product too soon and the product sounds very good then people may choose to stop buying the current product and wait for the new product. This is called the Osborne Effect after Osborne Computer Corporation which pre-announced a series of new products in 1983. The company went out of business shortly there after and the most common story has been that their sales dried up when they announced these new machines. (Whether this actually caused Osborne to go out of business is not universally accepted in retrospect, no one seems to argue that this was helpful to the company).

If a company still has old units in its warehouse when it ships the new product, these products will have to be sold for less money (or perhaps not sold at all). But, if the company guesses wrong how many of the old product it will sell in this transition and runs out of units in the warehouse then it may lose sales to a competitor. Combine this with a slip in the new product and you get the kind of scenario that can keep executives awake at night.

So why did Apple decide to pre-announce not one, but two products last year? The main reason would seem to be that they were not going through a product transition. They did not have a TV box when they pre-announced the AppleTV nor a cell phone when they pre-announced the iPhone. Why does this make a difference? The big difference here is that customers may in fact not buy some product that they were planning on buying and wait for the Apple product, but in this case it was not an Apple product. So with the iPhone, for example, what Apple wanted was for people to decide not to by that new BlackBerry, Blackjack, Razr, etc but to wait for the iPhone. What Apple did was create F.U.D. (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) about their competitor’s products. They did not need people to pre-order the iPhone so much as they wanted them to at least wonder whether they should wait and see. FUD is a very useful marketing tool. If you don’t have something sell, marketeers are trying to at least get you to wait before buying a competing product. Their hope, which worked in the case of the iPhone, is that if you wait long enough they will have a product you will want to buy.

So, will Apple pre-announce the next iMac. That is unlikely. But if they get into yet another consumer product business then it is very likely that they would pre-release that product.

I attended a class by New York Times technology columnist David Pogue on the new features in Leopard recently. Mr. Pogue is a dynamic speaker and the enthusiastic crowd was rocking. No, really, I mean the room was literally rocking. Of course the room was located on Holland America’s ms Volendam so the rocking was fairly easy to explain. This class was part of Insight Cruise‘s (formerly Geek Cruises) MacMania 7 cruise.

A MacMania cruise is like a Mac conference at sea and more than one of the attendees had their attendance at conference paid for by their company (although only the most generous company will also pay for the cruise itself). The speakers on MacMania 7 were: Richard Dreyfuss (the actor), Janet Hill, David Pogue, Randal Schwartz, Jason Snell, Sal Soghoian, Derrick Story and Robin Williams (the Mac author not the actor). One of the wonderful perks of the cruise is being able to meet, talk with and generally shmooze with people who are well known in the Mac community.

The classes offered on MacMania 7 included:

• Introduction to Lightroom
• Introduction to Aperture
• iPhone: The Missing Manual
• Maximizing iPhoto
• Photoshop for Photographers
• Integrating Photoshop with Aperture, Lightroom, or iPhoto
• Which Is Best for You — Aperture, Lightroom, or iPhoto?
• iDVD and iMovie
• Apple’s Latest and Greatest
• The Ground Floor Guide to the Macintosh
• Extreme Googling
• Inside Mac OS X “Leopard”
• Leopard Power User Tips
• Introduction to iLife
• Pushing iLife to the Limit
• Amazingly Cool Utilities
• Personal Podcasting Primer

The classes are not held while the ship is in port so that attendees and speakers alike can enjoy shore excursions or just generally explore. MacMania 7 stopped at a prvate island in the Bahamas, Aruba, Curaçao, Panama and Costa Rica with the highlight of the cruise being the Panama Canal.

The cruise had more than 4 days spent entirely at sea. If you enjoy the normal ways to spend your time on a cruise: shuffleboard, bingo, art auctions, shopping, etc then a geek cruise may not be right for you. If you can’t imagine entertaining yourself on a 10 day cruise and think that spending the time with 150 other Mac fanatics would be fun, then you might want to look into MacMania 8.

Insight Cruises also ran Shakespeare at Sea on the same cruise (which is what I was officially attending but I was allowed to attend either program). More information about the cruise can be found in Amateur Traveler Episode 113 – Theme Cruise to Panama (Shakespeare at Sea / MacMania).

I downloaded TeachMac to test it out, and it’s very easy to use! TeachMac has a very simple interface that you can use to search for & download tutorials on topics ranging from how to use iTunes to how to build your own Cocoa web browser. TeachMac makes it very easy to create your own customized library of instructional videos.

Along with other improvements, Version 5 now adds support for transferring downloaded tutorials directly into iTunes, making this content available to view on an iPod, iPhone, or the AppleTV.

“Whether or not content is exportable is determined by each author,” says Created Equal President, Byron Turner. “From now on, all materials we author will be exportable and we think most of our authors will do the same.”

TeachMac & TeachIT also allow you to create and sell your own tutorials, earning 100% of the sale price, as well as a percentage of the subscription price. Version 5 offers many improvements in this area, helping you to create better, more interactive content.

Created Equal is a non-profit educational corporation. Proceeds from the sale of subscriptions help to fund the Oasis Project, a permanent, long term sustainable domestic violence shelter and recovery center for women and children.

iRemember is a simplified page layout application designed to turn a user’s digital photos into memories by preserving them as personalized scrapbooks. Simply drag and drop pictures from iPhoto or Finder into a template; then scale, crop, resize, rotate or add shadow effects.

iRemember comes complete with starter templates, backgrounds, and a clip art browser for searching through its over 20,000 pieces of clip art and embellishments. Everything needed to create eye-popping scrapbook pages is included – except your photos!

Pricing & Availability:
A free trial of iRemember can be downloaded from www.MacScrapbook.com. Users of iRemember 2.x, may download a free update, while users of iRemember 1.x, may upgrade for only $9.95 plus shipping & handling. Priced at $39.95, iRemember is available for purchase through the MacScrapbook.com store and is available through most Mac resellers including the Apple Store, Office Depot, and Micro Center.

Version 2.0.3 adds support for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and includes a number of improvements and fixes with importing, smart lists, scanning, and Spotlight searching.

The Deep Prose web store sells USB and Bluetooth barcode scanners which complement Booxter and provide a complete integrated solution for collectors.

Booxter requires Mac OS 10.4 or Mac OS 10.5. The free version has a limit of 30 items for each library. The full version costs $49.99 USD.

Robert Pritchett notes the release of a very angry cat that has been in the bag for nearly 2 years and offers up how it is being treated in the media.

* Jonathan Hoyle goes beyond Leopard OS development with his “According to Hoyle” column.

* Harry (doc) Babad provides another round of Mac Tips this month.

* Rick Sutcliffe toys with legalsleeze and Apple in his Northern Spy column.

* Ed Prasek as a guest author, begins a SpinTip series on creating successful Mac-based products.

* Richard Lepsinger, also as a guest author, discusses how companies can stay ahead of the competition.

* Ted Bade offers up his Apple-centric views in his Views from the Ivory Tower column.

* And Steve Fyffe looks at qualifier keys in Under the Magnifying Glass.

In the Book Section, “Fonts and Encodings”, “iPod & ITunes for Dummies”, “Macs for Dummies” and “Shooting Digital” are reviewed. In the Games Section, Harry Babad looks at MyMahj, a free Mahjong tile game.

Stepping away from Apple and Macs in the Greenware Section for a moment, there are two more book reviews on “Peak Everything” and “Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future” and Harry Babad digs deeply into his extensive background in the Nuclear Industry, with his point of view regarding “Renewable Energy – Hype, Myth and Hope”.

The Software Section presents “A Better Finder Attributes” reviewed by Harry Babad, Avenir – A Writer’s Workshop” reviewed by a former macCompanion staff member, Derek Caudill, “DEVONthink Pro Office reviewed by Harry Babad, “RouteBuddy” a mapping program reviewed by Ted Bade, “Sequel”, music softwar reviewed by Daphne Kalfon, “textSoap” a quicker cleaner-upper reviewed by Harry Babad, “VectorWorks 2008, a Computer-Aided Design program reviewed by Robert Pritchett and “XPad” a notepad program reviewed by Harry Babad.

ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5 is an easy-to-use tool that supports mind mapping and brainstorming techniques as well as many other personal productivity methodologies. It provides businesses and individuals with an engaging and creative way to increase efficiency and productivity when organizing ideas and projects, or when communicating with a group of people.

Support of Quick Look technology has been added to ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.2 giving you an opportunity to preview maps in Finder without opening them in the application. This can be very useful especially when navigating through files using the new Finder Cover Flow feature, a visual navigation interface first seen in iTunes.

Because of the importance of iCal for both business and personal task planning, ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.2 introduces the ability to export dates and events to iCal. Information concerning tasks and events in a mind map can be quickly and easily transferred into iCal. Export to iCal is available for Leopard users only.

Mac OS X 10.5 look-and-feel standards are replicated in ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.2 with the addition of a new handy Clipart Library, map previews reflected in Page Navigator and a floating toolbar containing all of the ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5 drawing tools. Usability enhancements in the newest version include an automatic topic placement mode user can easily switch from the existing freehand topic placement mode.

More information about the ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5 can be found at the ConceptDraw website.

The update to ConceptDraw MIDNMAP 5.2 is free for all registered users of ConceptDraw MIDNMAP 5.x. ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5 is available at the price of $199 USD for the Professional edition and of $119 USD for Personal edition.

The lesson… always check Apple.com right BEFORE encoding and posting the latest Maccast. Thanks Apple.

Looks like ifoApplestore and the other rumor sites were right when they claimed to have confirmed October 26th as the launch date for Leopard. See you at the Apple store in about 10 days, 10 hours, 41 minutes, and 10 seconds.

Montage 1.3 now supports French, Italian, Spanish, and German, as has made improvements to it’s importing from Final Draft feature. Other changes include minor speed enhancements and bug fixes.

Though I personally haven’t used Montage, it sounds like an easy software to learn, yet powerful enough for professional screenwriters to use effectively. With it’s intuitively Mac-like interface, and pre-formatted themes for television, movies, and theatre, it’s a great tool for writing your next script.

Montage also has the ability to link with Apple Address Book, and includes hundreds of industry contacts, making it easier to submit your work.

If you would like to find out more about beta testing Montage 1.3, you can find information at Mariner Software.

Montage 1.3 will sell for $139.95 US, or can be acquired by a free upgrade to current Montage 1.0 owners. Montage 1.3 will also be sold onlne by Mariner Software as well as at retail stores, including: Amazon, CompUSA, Apple, Fry’s, MicroCenter, and The Writer’s Store.

My pre-ordered new Wireless Keyboard arrived, and I can say easily that my first impressions are very positive.

I have owned a Core2Duo MacBook for about a year, and become very accustomed to the keyboard style and layout. As a result, more and more when I sat down at my iMac to do some work I became annoyed at the bulky, blocky keyboard that came with the iMac. I even replaced it with the Wireless one that was previously released, which had little effect on my appreciation of the keyboard.

When Apple announced the new keyboard design I felt as if my mind had been read- for awhile now I had been thinking that it would be great if the keyboard for the imac was identical to that of the MacBooks. In fact, I’m considering an upgrade to a MacBook Pro, but am waiting for it as well to be upgraded to the recessed, square key design of the MacBooks and now iMac keyboards.

The New Wireless Keyboard is very, very compact. I don’t think it’s clear in the photos just how small, thin, and well-designed it is. It’s width and profile are exactly that of the MacBook’s- to a tee.

It’s height is a comfortable incline, one which is reasonable and not too daunting on the wrists. It’s understandable that the reason for the lift is due to the requirement of batteries, something that is a draw back for some people. I however use rechargeable batteries, and found that with the previous Wireless keyboard, the batteries lasted for months- and I imagine this keyboard will be no different. It takes 3 AA batteries, which are included (they’re Energizer batteries).

Another criticism of this Bluetooth version of the new Apple keyboard is it’s lack of a numeric keypad. And again, coming from the MacBook, I have both no worries about that and no need for it for the work I do. I can see however that some people are displeased because, to have the new design they’re left with the wired version, something that didn’t happen with the previous generation of Apple keyboards.

The typing experience is nearly identical to typing on my MacBook, something that’s warmly welcomed. Additionally, the extra Expose and Dashboard buttons, as well as brightness, volume, and playback controls are welcomed.

I’m giving it a 4.5 out of 5- the missing numeric keypad will be a deal breaker for some, while the portability, MacBook size and feel replication will also be a beacon of joy for others.

Update: Looks like there are some challenges for iPhone hacks even if they re-lock the iPhone prior to running the update. I just spoke with Shooby and he used the currently published re-locking procedures to relock and restore his iPhone. He reinserted his AT&T SIM and ran the 1.1.1 update. After update his AT&T SIM was invalidated. Now, we are not sure if the error is with the procedure he used to re-lock the phone or if this will be the experience for everyone, but at the very least it should server as a BIG warning. If you have a SIM unlocked iPhone, please wait for the iPhone Dev team to look into this before running the 1.1.1 update. Shooby is working with them now, so stay tuned.

The concept behind their software is to allow all of your iLife content to be streamed directly to the 360, and it works as simply as it sounds. Requiring minimal setup and only $20 USD for the full version, Connect360 is a must have for Mac and 360 owners. The only notable downsides are not the fault of Nullriver, but of DRM and Microsoft’s limited codec support.

There is a generous free trial version available that allows you to stream a limited number of photos, music, and videos at a time. For more information about supported content see this blog post from msdn.com

This is a landmark case for the European Commission (EC) who seems to be actively pursuing large US companies with large market share in their respective fields, and it appears that Apple is next on the EC’s radar.

Apple and some of its music partners are currently facing investigation by the European anti-trust officials for the pricing of items in the iTunes store. The commission wants to discover the reasons for different pricing in different territories of the European Union (for people who aren’t in Europe, you can only purchase from the country which your credit/debit card address is located. Apple also has different prices in the different stores). This is no joke for Apple as the EC has power to fine a company up to 10% of there worldwide revenue.

Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs said recently, “We think prices should be the same. We think anybody in Europe should buy off any store.” but then contradicting this a Reuters report is claiming an Apple spokesman said, “there is nothing in it’s contract with Universal obliging it to operate national stores or to set a higher price in countries such as Britain”, so what’s stopping Mr Jobs from doing what he says he wants to do?

Many analysts and the commission believe the reason Apple takes this position is due to the record labels putting pressure on the company to operate the variable pricing structure in different EU countries. The trouble is it contradicts and is possibly in violation of the anti-trust laws which operate in the EU. The record labels claim they charge different rates to cover different royalty payment rates which are overseen by different agencies depending on the country and are negotiated on a country by country basis.

I live in the UK and feel it would be much better for consumers if we had one European iTunes store from which we could all purchase. It would be a lot easier for everyone, as content is not consistent along with the pricing.

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with O2 to offer our revolutionary iPhone to UK customers”, said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “US iPhone customer satisfaction is off the charts, and we can’t wait to let UK customers get their hands on it and learn what they think of it”.

Apple held a special event at the Regent Street Apple store Tuesday morning to announce the deal. At the event Apple and O2 also gave details on pricing and service plans. The iPhone will be available in an 8GB model for £269 (inc VAT) (USD ~ $536). For service, customers can pick from three monthly iPhone “tariffs” offered by O2. £35 (USD ~$70) for 200 minutes, £45 (USD ~$90) for 600 minutes, and £55 (USD ~$110) for 1200 minutes. The 200 minute plan includes 200 SMS messages, while the upper two plans come with 500 SMS messages a month. All plans come with unlimited data, visual voicemail, and access to 7,500 wifi hotspots from The Cloud.

If you ask me, the pricing of the iPhone seems a bit steep. Maybe Apple thinks what worked in the US can work in the UK too? If that is the case I think they are making a huge mistake. It will be interesting to see how well the iPhone sells at that price in the early weeks of the UK launch. After issuing massive price drops in the US just months after release, UK customers may be more likely to wait and see if Apple repeats it’s iPhone price cutting tricks again across The Pond.

On the O2 side of things… I am sure some are a bit disappointed that there was no 3G version of the phone announced. The iPhone on O2 will continue to run EDGE just like the AT&T iPhones here in the States. The advantage in the UK is customers will have free unlimited access to the 7,500 wifi hotspots from The Cloud. Unfortunately, Apple may have needed to include the UK hotspot deal because currently only about 30% of the country is covered by O2 on EDGE. Still, it’s nice to have the wifi and I hope Apple is looking at working out some similar deal in the US. Since T-Mobile would be the logical choice for a wifi hotspot deal here it seems unlikely Apple would do it, but you never know. It could be an interesting way to leverage iPhone service and to keep pressure on AT&T.

If you have any thoughts or opinions on the UK release of the iPhone be sure to make yourself heard. Hit the Maccast Forum or shoot me an email maccast at gmail dot com.