MacCast 03.30.2011 - Show #343
Links
V Opening
V Opening Music
* Music is "Say Anything" by Manda and the Marbles
* Band's MySpace page
V Sponsor
V Circus Ponies
* Notebook
* Free trial.
V News
V iOS 5 moved to fall
* Rumor from Techcrunch
* Will show off at WWDC
V Features would reportedly include
* iTunes cloud
V Coincide with new iPods and possibly new iPad
* Unclear if new iPad would be new design or revamp
* Find my friends (social)
V New and improved notification system
* Last June, it hired Palm's webOS notification designer and former Apple employee Rich Dellinger
V Upgrade to maps
* could possibly be move to Apples own system?
* Apple acquired Placebase and Poly 9
V Improved voice control system wide
* Not just new commands, but smarter AI for things like search
* Also improved voice recognition in assistive technologies.
* Could open voice control to developers via APIs
* Apple acquired Siri back in April of 2010
V Rumors from the hardware side
* Dual core A5
* Metal back plate
V LTE support via new Qualcomm chips due in the fall (maybe part reason for the release date move?)
* Better battery performance
* More time for LTE roll outs
* AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile by that time?
V WWDC sells out in hours
* Planning on going and didn't get a ticket? Check eBay.
* Event is June 6th to the 10th in San Francisco at Moscone West.
* The event which typically hosts 5,000 developers sold out in 8-10 hours depending on the source.
V Tickets can be bought by one person and activated by others so scalping has begun
* Tickets are on eBay for over $2,500 (Original price was $1,599)
V International ipad2 launch
* repeat of the US launch
* long lines reported and sell outs in most places
* US prices adjusted for average taxes and exchange rates appear to be 100 to 200 cheaper than in many Euro regions.
V iOS 4.3.1 update
* Fixes an occasional graphics glitch on iPod touch (4th generation)
* Resolves bugs related to activating and connecting to some cellular networks
* Fixes image flicker when using Apple Digital AV Adapter with some TVs
* Resolves an issue authenticating with some enterprise web services
* Reportedly fixes battery issues from 4.3 update
* The update isn’t available of Verizon iPhone 4 users who remain on iOS 4.2.6.
V New iMacs soon?
* Rumors are starting to heat up
* Nothing major here, just a bump
* Dual and quad core Sandy Bridge processors
* Updated GPUs, Intel Integrated HD and AMD processors
* Thunderbolt ports
* Late April or early May release
V Mac 10.6.7 OpenType font bug
* A bug is being reported by some users
* Can impact printing with certain fonts from come apps, like Pages and Office
* Also seems to impact PDF generation, especially with Adobe apps.
* View of PDF with the fonts generated outside 10.6.7 seems to be OK.
V The issue impacts Mac apps that use Apple's OS X PDF rendering engine
* Preview doesn't use the whole PDF specification, so seems to be immune.
* According to TidBits PDF's have a definition of how glyphs are encoded and a change 10.6.7 resulted in PDFs ending up with an incorrect encoding definition.
V It only effects OpenType Postscript fonts
* Workaround is to use non-OpenType Postscript version of a font
V Roll back to 10.6.6
* Use original install disk
* Apple the 10.6.6 combo updater
* If you rely on OpenType Postscript fonts you may not want to upgrade just yet.
V Apple also released a patch for a 13" Macbook Air bug
* Mac OS X v10.6.7 Supplemental Update for 13" MacBook Air (Late 2010)
* This update addresses an issue that makes the system unresponsive when using iTunes. It is recommended for all 13″ MacBook Air (Late 2010) users running Mac OS X v10.6.7.
V iPad 2 glass stronger
* Even though it's 27% thinner it seems to be stronger
* FixYouri did some torture testing and found it very flexible.
* Seems to support theories that Apple is using Ashai "Dragontrail" glass which is a competitor to Gorilla glass
V Lion Developer Preview 2
* Apple released the latest developer build of Lion.
* Developer Preview 2 build 11A419
* iCal has been given the leather bound facelift, like the Address Book. More closely matches what we've seen in the iPad and Mobile Me versions
V iChat reportedly give a single view of chats from multiple services
* Yahoo Messenger support was added in the first Beta
* Also supports Bonjour, AIM, and Jabber
V FTP has been removed as an option from the System Preferences-->Sharing-->File Sharing options
* Still can connect and download from the Finder 'Connect to Server' options and can enable FTP from the command line
* WebDAV sharing has taken FTPs place in the GUI based interface. Should work well with iOS devices as many apps can connect to WebDAV servers.
* Despite what some blogs are saying, this doesn't come close to a GM build.
* Still a healthy list of items for developers to test and check.
* A new version of Xcode, 4.1 Developer Preview 2 was also released.
V Feedback, Comments and Commentary
V Voice Control on the Mac
* Play question from Phil
V cover built-in options, how to enable
* System Preferences and navigating to Speech > Speech Recognition
* Turn Speakable Items on
* Adjust settings, like listening key, keyword command, etc.
V Enable speech recognition and say, Open Speech Commands Window. This will list the available commands.
* Add AppleScripts to '~/Library/Speech/Speakable Items
* The name os the file is the command, I.e. "Hello World.scpt"
V Dragon Dictate can also do commands
* built-in commands and mouse grid voice control
* AppleScriptable
V Offline Mail in iOS
V Gary left a comment on the Maccast site
* Wants to respond to emails on his iPhone in "offline" mode when on the train with no signal
* iPhone keep trying to send Mail and pops up alerts
* Use Settings-->Airplane Mode or Turn off Wi-Fi on an iPod Touch?
* For me Mail only warned me on the launch of Mail. Then I could compose and they saved as draft.
V Gmail, Mail.app, and iOS set-up
* David was having an issue where he would have to go into the 'All Mail' folder for the GMail IMAP account he had set up in Mail.app on his Mac (not in general inbox)
V Gmail is a tricky animal on the Mac and in iOS despite Apple's "support" for it.
* I learned this from Dave and John over at the Mac Geek Gab
V As I can determine there are two main sources of trouble
* GMail's use of "labels" instead of IMAPs system of "folders" (really sort of the same thing with different terminology, but not quite)
* Differences in standard IMAP folder names and directory structure
V How you set up and configure IMAP in Gmail and in your clients is key
V Set-up IMAP support "correctly" in Gmail
* 1. In Gmail, go to Settings --> Labs and and click “Enable” next to “Advanced IMAP Controls”
* 2. Enable IMAP and Save
V Disable the "All Mail" label from IMAP
* 1. Go back to Settings --> Labels and you should now see a “Show in IMAP” column next to the labels.
* 2. Uncheck the “All Mail” folder. Also any others you don't want showing up in Apple Mail or other IMAP clients
V Don't use the "Gmail" presets when setting up clients
* Set them up as standard IMAP mail accounts using GMails IMAP server settings
V Fix the folder mappings
* The Sent, Trash folders need to be mapped. Drafts also if you'd like, but I've had duplicate issues there.
V In Mail
* Select the folder under the Gmail folder list (i.e. Sent)
* Go to Mailbox-->Use This Mailbox for and select the appropriate folder
* This will make sure they show up in th appropriate sections at the top of the Mailboxes list
V On iOS
* Settings-->“Mail, Contacts, Calendars” and Select your Gmail IMAP
* Scroll down and choose “Advanced”
* 3 items under Mailbox Behaviors
* Select the one you want to map (i.e. "Sent Mailbox")
* choose the appropriate mailbox from the “On The Server” section.
V Backward compatibility and upgrading
* Correction on opening older Office 2004 files in Lion 10.7 (no more Rosetta)
V Installing Rosetta in Snow Leopard
* It's an optional install.
* If you need it it should pop-up an alert asking you to install
V Nothing wrong with NOT upgrading
* Depending on your needs.
* But you may not be able to run the latest and greatest stuff, but if you don't have a need don't.
V Shifting media to apps
V Recently we have been seeing some experimenting by some music and movie studios with distributing movies and albums as apps.
* Universal Music Group and EMI albums as apps for $9.99
V Warner Bros. (Inception and Dark Knight) free apps with $9.99 to $11.99 to open full movie and extras
* Allowed to get movies in iTunes countries that don't have movies yet.
* The apps feature the music, movies, bonus content.
V Does it work?
* iTunes LPs have not done all that well.
* The movie apps were well received by the media, but what about consumers?
V The days of the album are gone, get over it
V Strategy Analytics had a recent study
* CD sales down 40%, digital sales continue to rise, but not to match pace.
* Predict that by 2015 digital sales will break out at 39% singles, 32% albums, and 14% streaming
V Labels and Studios need to adapt to changing consumer dynamics
V Maximize profits on singles
* Also, how about better pricing to reflect lower digital distribution costs (I assume it's cheaper)?
V Artists need to focus on compelling content for album sales.
* For my favorite artists I still prefer albums.
V Air Play and Air Play compatible devices might help
* Get content off the iOS and into a TV or speaker system.
V Duplicate podcasts in iTunes
* Richy sometimes gets duplicate 'groups' of podcasts
* Likely has to due with the podcast metadata, specifically the album title or album title sort fields
* the Podcaster may have made a mistake in entering it before uploading the audio file, or worse not including it at all
* easy to fix by selecting the track in iTunes and doing a get info. Make sure the meta data is EXACTLY the same for the album title and album title sort fields and that should re consolidate them.
V News feeds and the paywall
* Play comment from Tim
* share my thoughts.
* Model needs to change and people additives toward all content on the Internet being free.
* I think more and more we'll see the freemium model expand.
V Closing
V Podcast Marketplace
V Thanks to my sponsors
* Circus Ponies
* Smile
* Faronics, Deep Freeze
V Keep emails coming. Audio comments.
V 281-622-4269 or 281-Mac-I-Am-9
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V EOL - The 27" iPad 2
* Humorous video from Norway