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Opening
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Opening Music
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Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
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Mandaandthemarbles.com
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Sponsor
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Circus Ponies
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Notebook
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News
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Apple rocks it's Q2 earnings call
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Apple had its best March quarter ever.
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Apple posted a net profit of $11.6 billion on $39.2 billion in sales.
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Gross margin grew from 41.14 percent to 47.4 percent year-over-year.
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Apple sold 35.1 million iPhones, 11.8 million iPads, 7.7 million iPods and 4 million Macs.
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TUAW pointed out that with 91 days in the quarter blogger Adrian Kingsley-Hughes did some quick math and that's 645,000 devices a day. 130,000 a day being iPads
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iPhone sales were up 88 percent year-over-year. While iPad sales also rose 151 percent and even Mac sales were up 7 percent year over year.
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In a pretty consistent trend iPod sales were down year over year 15 percent. Really not surprising though.
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After the call analysts were bullish with a few setting stock targets of over $1,000 per share by the end of the year.
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Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White thinks Apple will become a $1 trillion company in the next year.
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Some other interesting things from the call
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Apple's hoard of cash and equivalents has grown to $110.2 billion.
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In education, Apple now sells two iPads for every Mac
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iCloud now has more than 125 million customers.
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Tim Cook said they would much rather settle lawsuits than do battle
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He also noted that it wouldn't be a problem of other would just invent their own stuff.
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"Apple does not become the developer for the world."
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He may have a point. The Verge posted images of the Google phone that were being shown to carriers prior to the introduction of the iPhone and it had an on device keyboard and roller ball. Looking more like a Blackberry. No touchscreen or on screen keyboard.
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Later in the week it was reported that Cook and Samsung's CEO will be going into settlement talks in May.
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Cook dismissed Apple doing an tablet/notebook hybrid comparing it to merging a toaster and a fridge. Yeah you can do it, but who would want one.
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It's also interesting to note the success the carriers have had riding the iPhone's coat tails
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Sprint activated 1.5 million iPhones last quarter.
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AT&T activated 4.3 million and Verizon 3.2 million. In Verizon's case over 50% of their smartphones sold were iPhones. In AT&T's case the iPhone accounts for 78% of their smartphone sales.
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Most of these are also new customers for these carriers. 21% of AT&T's iPhones were sold to new customers while in Verizon's case 44% of new iPhone owners were also new to their network.
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44% of Sprint's iPhone customers were also new to the network, but to be clear Sprint did see a loss in the first quarter.
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WWDC dates and set, but ticket issues abound
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Last Wednesday Apple started up ticket sales for the 2012 World Wide Developers Conference at 5:30 AM PDT
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The event will be held June 11 to June 15, 2012 at Moscone West in San Francisco, CA
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As they normally do it was not pre-announced. Last year tickets sold out in a day. This year it was two hours.
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Many developers weren't even up and aware tickets were on sales before the event sold out
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The tickets went for $1600 a pop and are non-transferable. Apple also had limits of 1 per individual developer and 5 per company
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Some major developers, like Panic's Cabel Sasser and Aaron Hillegass of Big Nerd Ranch, later in the day got notices that their tickets were being cancelled for policy violations.
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The cancellations were later found to be some sort of glitch and some are being reinstated
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A guy even posted on Craigslist an offer of up to $2100 for a WWDC ticket and said he would legally change his name so he could use it.
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Meanwhile the whole process just seems to be a big mess.
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Seems like most developers are going to have to skip the party in SFO and opt for viewing the sessions on iTunes after they are posted. Frankly a much cheaper and easier to access option.
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Apple building and expansion roundup
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Apple has run into a snag with it's plans for an Americas Operations Center in Austin, TX
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Apple wants to invest $304 million in the region to create a center that would handle most of their business operations for North and South America.
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As part of the deal Apple had worked out total tax incentives to the tune of about $36 million over the next 10 to 15 years.
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Roughly $8.6 million had been approved by Austin City Council back in March.
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The trouble? Part of those incentives, $5.4 to $6.4 million, were supposed to come from the Travis County Commissioners Court, but they are now being called into question.
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That has put the deal on hold while they negotiate.
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It will be interesting to see how long Apple wants to spend doing that though. I have to imagine there could be several places in the US who would be happy to provide Apple the incentives to build in their backyard.
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Apple wants to build a massive off campus cafeteria
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The San Jose Mercury News reports that Apple plans on building a 21,468-square-foot cafeteria near their headquarters in Cupertino
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The Cupertino planning commission has already given their approval.
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The facility would only be open to Apple employees and is said to have a cafe, meeting rooms, lounges and a courtyard.
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The idea is it would provide a secure off-campus locations where employees could go but still be able to discuss work and engineering projects without concerns of their conversations being overheard by other competitive companies that are also located in the area.
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iPad gateway to Apple for many
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A new report from NPD says that 1 in 4 owners of Apple gear bought an iPad as their first Apple product
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The study shows that the iPad is moving toward replacing the iPod and iPhone as someones first Apple product
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I used to be that 82 percent of new Apple owners had the iPod as their first Apple product. In the past 2 years just 57 percent of first time Apple owners started with an iPod
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The study also showed that 33% of U.S. homes contain at least one Apple device.
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Homes with Apple products tend to have 2.4 Apple devices, with 69% of homes having an iPod
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And 58% of homes with an Apple product have a PC, while 30% have a non-Apple Smartphone
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Outside the US the iPad expansion into other countries continues to expand. this past week the new iPad became available in India, Colombia, Estonia, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa, and Thailand.
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Apple working deal with EPIX
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Reuter's says that Apple started talks with EPIX, a company backed by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp, MGM and Paramount Pictures, earlier this year.
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The rumor is Apple is interested in getting access to the groups movie content for streaming to the Apple TV and other future products
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Netflix currently has an exclusive streaming deal with EPIX which expires in September
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Many believe Apple is rushing to lockup deals for content before it releases an Apple branded TV and possibly iTunes streaming TV services
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Neither Netflix nor Apple commented on the rumor.
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Feedback, Comments and Commentary
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Mixed Applecare experiences
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On the last show we mentioned Seattle Rex and his successful small claims court win against Apple over his Macbook Pro and the NVIDIA GPU issue
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I had felt the incident, while handled poorly by Apple, was probably isolated and asked for your help confirming my theory.
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Generally I got the responses I'd expect with reports of great, if not above and beyond, Applecare experiences.
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But I also got an email from David who is having an experience very much like Seattle Rex's.
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His Early 2008 Macbook Pro (NVIDIA GPU) failed. When he contacted Applecare they informed him that since he was 14 days past the Extended repair program that there was nothing they could do.
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They did direct him directly to NVIDIA to see if he could get resolution from them, but as you can imagine that went no where.
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We can only theorize what's going on, but here is my guess after talking it over with some other Apple experts
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The extended Applecare program was covered by NVIDIA.
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It was there part that was defective and they were fully footing the repair bills on the impacted models
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This fact is confirmed by the Apple representatives in the Seattle Rex case.
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Since technically the program was run by NVIDA, through Applecare, it's likely that Apple has no ability to force NVIDA to cover the repairs even 1 day outside of the agreed warranty extension date.
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All this said, I find it disappointing that Apple is not continuing to stand behind the coverage indefinitely.
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Some of you my think that's extreme and I might normally agree with you.
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Covering product warranties on products is not good for business or the bottom line.
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But in this case they know that they released a defective product into the marketplace, in many instances companies would do a recall contacting owners and letting them know to bring back defective products for repair or replacement
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In this case Apple puts the burden on the customer to either have their product fail within their extended warranty window or to somehow find out about the program on their own and to bring their machine in to get checked. Even then if there is no issue they would be sent away.
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The parts are know to be bad, so in my opinion Apple should fix them, even if it cost them out of pocket at this point.
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The repair quoted to Dave was around $600.00, I doubt that is Apple's cost. Even if we assume that is this issue was related to a batch of product sold over 1 or 2 quarters. So even if we are talking about a million effected Macs, and I doubt we are, that would run Apple 600,000 million. Sounds like a lot, but for a company with over 100 billion cash on hand it's not. And again I would guess a large number of machines were already covered by the NIVIDA backed extension program.
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Apple's fanatical attention to customer satisfaction has been one of their trademarks and a big part of their brand and reputation. I would think they would want to continue to stand behind that.
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More Mission Control tips
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Kirit pointed out that you can make apps open up into a specific desktop every time you launch them
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Use Mission Control to place the app on the desktop you like.
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Helpful tip here is that you can open the app, launch mission control and then drag that app to the upper right corner of the Mission Control window
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You'll see a little "+" icon appear
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Drop the window on that and it will create a new desktop and move that app to it
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Now open that new desktop and in the Dock Control+Click the apps icon
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Now go to Options > Assign To and select 'This Desktop'
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Now each time you launch that app it will open into that desktop
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You also have an option for 'All Desktops'
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Note that the desktop must always be present for this to work. If you have assigned an app to Desktop 3 and then remove that desktop it will default back to opening to Desktop 1 and you'll have set it up again.
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Stop Desktops re-arranging
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Another thing that confuses people in Mission Control is that by default the desktops beyond your main desktop will automatically rearrange their order based on the last desktop you were using.
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So if you access Desktop 3 and then swipe right you'll return to Desktop 1. Swiping back right returns you to Desktop 3 since you last accessed Desktop 3. You don't go in order to Desktop 2 as you might expect.
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If you don't like this behavior you can disable it
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System Preferences > Mission Control
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Uncheck, 'Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use'
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Make sure your spaces are in a preferred order before you do this
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You could just turn it off before setting up any spaces which is probably easiest
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If you already have Spaces set up and need to re-order them you can go into Mission Control and drag them into the order you prefer at the top of the Mission Control window
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The last thing that was always convenient was assigning keyboard shortcuts to access your spaces
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Option+left arrow or Option+right arrow will slide you between spaces
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Option+number of space will jump you to that space
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You can adjust these shortcuts.
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System Preferences > Keyboard
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Click the 'Keyboard Shortcuts' tab and select the "Mission Control" section
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Expand the Mission Control in the main pane and you can assign or change the shortcuts there
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You need to have the Desktops set up to have them show up in the list
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Mailing to a Group in iOS
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A great feature of Address Book in OS X is the ability to set up groups of contacts and then in Mail.app being able to choose that group in any of that address fields when you send an email
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As John pointed out, unfortunately, this doesn't work in iOS.
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iOS Contacts has the groups and you can see them when you adding names to the address fields in Mail, but you have to select each address and add it one at a time. Not as a whole group. Annoying.
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Why Apple has yet to implement this feature in iOS is a mystery.
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Luckily there is a work around.
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1) Start with a text file, use the Notes app for example
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2) Enter your list in this format:
Joe Cool joe@email.com, Jane Cool jane@email.com, Dave Jones davy@gmail.com, Kevin Smith ksmith@gmail.com
I think you could use just a comma separated list of email addresses without the names and <>, but with if it makes the names in Mail look nicer especially if they are not in the Contacts or Address Book
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3) After it's typed out, select it all and copy it.
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4) Now go to Contacts and create a new contact. Give it a name like:
First: Mailing
Last: Group
Company: Mailing Group
and then in the email field paste the list.
Now here is the kicker though, You have to initiate the email from the Contacts. You can't do it from Mail or it won't work.
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5) To send the email open contacts, find the entry and click the email to start the email. In the To, field at that point you should seethe nice separated name list
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I found out later that you can make these lists "Group" contacts work from Mail or any other app that integrates mail. The secret is you have to leave the name and "<" off the beginning of the list and leave the ">" off the end. So your list in the email field would look like this:
joe@email.com, Jane Cool jane@email.com, Dave Jones davy@gmail.com, Kevin Smith ksmith@gmail.com
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At that point you can send from Mail. The first address will send out with the name of the Group though. So in this example joe@email.com would send out as:
Mailing Group joe@email.com
Also when you set it up this way emailing directly from the Contacts app seems to break and only sends to the first recipient on the list. Hope this all make sense.
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iTunes Music Match streaming, not "streaming"
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I had covered this more in depth on the show back in February (2/11/2012), but it came up again this week, so I'll go over it again.
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If you've signed up for iTunes Music Match and you've Matched stuff up to iTunes in the Cloud you have the ability to "stream" music to your Mac's
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Or at least it seems that way.
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For tracks in iTunes that have been matched or uploaded, but are not in your local library you will see the iCloud download icon in iTunes if you've enabled the column
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Right+Click on the column title area in the main iTunes window and choose 'iCloud Download' to enable the column
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You can also simply select and play the track as a "stream". The file isn't added to your iTunes Music folder and the status doesn't appear to change in your iTunes Library.
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This is misleading though. If you "stream" a track and go to ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iTunes/PlayCache you'll see:
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PlayCacheInfo.xml
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A folder with a cryptic name
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Looking in the cryptic name folder you'll find:
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A bunch of folders and subfolders with 2 digit file names
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Drill into these and eventually you'll find AAC and/or MP3 audio files
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Again these files will have really cryptic names
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But, if you use Quicklook and play these you'll see that they are the full tracks that you "streamed"
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My PlayCache folder had almost a several hundred MBs of files in it.
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As far as I can tell there is no way to control how much gets "cached" into this folder and I'm not sure when and if it ever gets purged.
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Retrieve photos from Mobile Me Gallery
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Jonathan want's to get ready for the iCloud transition on June 30th. Mobile Me Galleries are going away so he wanted to know the procedure for getting photos off the current gallery
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Apple has set up a FAQ for questions about the transition
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They also have an article specific to getting your photos off Gallery
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Now typically you would have published the photos to Gallery from iPhoto or Aperture. In most cases then you should already have the photos in your Library.
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If you published to Gallery and removed the images from your local Library I would hope you would have created an archive or backup elsewhere before deleting them.
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If not and the copies in Mobile Me Gallery are the only ones you should still be able to sync them from there.
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I'll cover the process for getting them from the web or syncing to iPhoto. If you use Aperture the link to the instructions are in the show notes
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Sync to your Mac with iPhoto '11 (version 9)
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Make sure that your MobileMe account is properly configured in Mac System Preferences
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Open iPhoto.
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Choose iPhoto > Preferences.
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Click Accounts at the top of the preferences window and make sure that your MobileMe account is visible on the left. If not, add your account by clicking the plus sign and entering your MobileMe username and password.
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Select your MobileMe account under the Web section of the iPhoto source list.
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Double-click on each individual album in your Gallery and wait for any new photos in the album to download to your computer. A photo is completely downloaded when the word “pending” no longer appears on the bottom of the photo.
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Once all photos have been downloaded you can drag and drop photos from each of your galleries to Photos in the left hand column to ensure that they are in your main iPhoto library.
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Download from the web
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Using a web browser, go to your MobileMe Gallery at me.com/gallery. Sign in with your Apple ID and password.
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In the My Gallery sidebar on the left, select an album or movie.
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Click on the Adjust Settings icon on the top of the page. Looks like a pair of sliders.
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Make sure you have allowed downloading of the photos and movies. Then click Publish to dismiss the window.
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On the page that opens, click the download arrow icon at the top of the page.
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If you are downloading a photo album, Gallery will create a .zip file that contains all of the photos and movie clips in the album. Once processing is complete, click the Download button.
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If you are downloading a movie, choose the movie size you would like to download and click the Download button.
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Repeat these steps for each of your photo albums and movies.
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Another option would be to go through iDisk
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In Mac OS X Finder go to Go > iDisk > My iDisk
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Once connected navigate to Web > Sites > _gallery
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Inside the _gallery folder you'll see folders with numeric folder names for each gallery
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Inside those there will be a folder for each image in your gallery. Named with the image filename (i.e. DSC_2456).
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Inside that you'll find all the different files and thumbnails. You're looking for the 'large.jpg' file which should be the original 9or at least the biggest size uploaded to Mobile Me Gallery).
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As you can see this is not the best way because all your images will have the same filename and getting each image is tedious.
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|
Unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile
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Just want to comment that as a Maccast listener pointed out if you have an unlocked device or you purchase one outright using the Straight Talk pay as you go plan at $45.00/mo offers some significant savings
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16GB unlocked 4S USD $649.00 + 24 mos. at $45.00 totals $1,729.00
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16GB AT&T 4S USD $199.00 + 24 mos phone at $70.00 + $20.00 Text + $30.00 data totals $3,079.00
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Over 2 years you'd actually save $1,350.00. You could actually buy 2 more unlocked iPhones 4S and have $50 left over for dinner.
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Plus you have no contract so if you decide in a year you want to switch or a carrier has a better deal you're free to switch.
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T-Mobile had an even better web deal.
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I paid $1.99 for a SIM and then signed up for a $30.00 plan
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Includes 100 talk minutes, unlimited text and unlimited data
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Activation was much simpler than the Straight Talk on my iPhone 3GS
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I guess because it wasn't the AT&T network my iPhone behaved more like an in-store unlocked phone.
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I didn't have to configure the APN, but after inserting the T-Mobile SIM on my device I could go to Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data and the configuration options were there.
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It also enabled the 'Carrier' menu
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I did have trouble connecting to the T-Mobile network at my house.
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The network speeds are of course 2G (EDGE)
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At home I could barely get 0.3 to 0.7 Mbps down and roughly the same up
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On a good signal I did get up to 0.18 MBps down
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So while this is a cheap plan it's not for everyone.
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If you don't mind limited calling minutes, want lots of texting, and will only be using data for email with possibly light web surfing it might be an option.
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Add Movies to iTunes without Autoplay
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Fernando has been in the process of converting his movie library to add to iTunes, but discovered that when he drag and drops the converted video onto iTunes to add it ti his library it starts to autoplay
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In addition to just being annoying this also ends up making the video as "played", so it loses the blue in watched dot.
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He was wondering if there was a way to disable that feature.
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I don't know of any way to do that, but I do know 3 ways to work around the issue.
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1) After the video has been added to iTunes in the Movies section you can Control+Click (Right+Click) on the movie and then choose 'Mark as Unwatched'. That will bring back the little blue dot.
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2) Instead of drag and drop use the iTunes menu. Choose File > Add to Library… (Command+O) and then select the videos.
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3) Use the special, "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder in your iTunes Media folder. Just drop your files on to the ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Automatically Add to iTunes folder and that will copy them into iTunes. You can even add this folder to your Dock or make an alias of it on the Desktop (hold Command+Option and drag the folder to your desktop) to make it more convenient.
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Closing
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Thanks to my sponsors
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