When the iPhone first came out, you couldn’t go any website without seeing loads of stories surrounding it. People loving it, people hating it, people having love/hate relationships with it, everyone had something to say (even MacCast writers). Some of the major complaints have been addressed with recent updates and iPhone now has a remarkable hacking community. Nothing has changed with then news sites, iPhone is everywhere and there is nothing you can do about it. This post/rant is a newbies perspective on why the iPhone is the best, and worst piece of technology in recent years, hope you find it interest

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.
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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.

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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.

Looks like an observant Maccst listener, Fred, may have found the source of that secondbMacBook Pro wake from sleep issue I told you about on the last show. Despite the recent patch from Apple, many of our listeners were still experiencing a problem with their MacBooks where the trackpad and keyboard would become unresponsive after waking from sleep. Fred discovered that in his case his Remote Buddy software (a great app that I have recommended on the show before) may be causing the issue. He wrote the developer and sure enough there seems to be a bug in OS X’s handling of the USB bus when waking from deep sleep. If you want to know all the down and dirty facts there is this post up on the Remote Buddy support forums. In my understanding is that there appears to be a bug in the IOKit with connections made using the IOUSB*UserClient. This issue seems to effect the newer “Santa Rosa” (I still hate this term as it is technically not correct) MacBooks. In these models the USB bus for the internal trackpad and keyboard is shared with external ports. When waking from sleep OS X goes through the USB bus and re-establishes it’s USB connections. The issue is the timing of events. If a 3rd party app makes a call to reset the USB bus at the wrong moment during this process, it may inadvertently lock-up the IOUSBController rendering the USB ports, internal trackpad, and built-in keyboard unresponsive. Annoying, but should be relatively easy to patch in the next OS X update. For now the workaround would be to turn off deep sleep mode or to un-install any 3rd party apps that may be triggering the issue.

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.

One of those things that irks me about the iPhone and iPod Touch is that you can download iTunes music directly, but you can’t subscribe to podcasts. These two mobile devices are amazing because they free us from the traditional computer paradigm, but they just feel artificially limited by business model constraints. Fortunately, Matthew Smith is developing a solution called MobileCast that lets you download your podcasts directly to your iPhone, without having to first sync with your Mac or PC. Let’s take a quick look…

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).
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If you haven’t heard of the video website Hulu, you must be living under a rock. For the past few months, it has been the site of controversy, hate, and mild like. For those who are living under rocks, let me sum it up for you. Hulu is a joint venture between NBC Universal (NBC, USA, Sci-Fi, etc) and Newscorp (Fox, FX, Fox Sports, and iHOR (International House of Republicans)). Both of them were tired of having their shows put up on YouTube, and felt that Apple was ripping them off, so they decided to make their own site. When I first heard about this site, I assumed the usual: No downloading, heavy DRM, no Mac/Linux, and only clips. Yet I signed up anyway because, lets face it, I am a sucker for a new web service (I am the guy who signed up for the Slingbox for Mac private beta even though I do not own nor have I ever owned, a Slingbox.) A few days ago I got the email that I had been accepted, and I delved into the website with the lowest of expectations. And those expectations were blown away.
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I know, who would have thunk it, but when I was cruising Apples online store, there it was. Plus it was $20 cheaper than the retail versions for the consoles at $79.99.

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!

Like many people you have stuff that you:
A: Want to get rid of and
B: You don’t want to give it away for free.

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!

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Shopping at TheGadgetLocker.com just got better! Cyber Monday(s) are here! Now, through the end of the year, every time you make a purchase at TheGadgetLocker.com on a Monday, you can get 10% off your order. Just enter the coupon code ‘cybermonday’ when you’re checking out, and you’ll automatically get 10% off your total purchase. Starting today (Nov. 26th) and lasting through the entire holiday season (up to and including Dec. 31st) take advantage of this great promotion to save you money when buying your favorite iPod and Mac accessories.

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.