Apple number 2 music seller in US

According to the latest NPD Group’s MusicWatch survey.

Apple surpassed Amazon to become the number 2 music reseller in the US.

Includes against CD sales.

One analyst predicts they will pass Wal-Mart by the end of the year.

Overall sending on music was down 10%, could be somewhat due to the economy?

Apple updates Macbooks and Macbook Pros

Using the latest Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn processor

Macbook Pros

Processors up to 2.6GHz with 6MB of shared L2 cache

Hard drive options up to 300GB

All come standard with 2GB of RAM

NVIDIA graphics processors with up to 512MB of video memory.

Multi-touch track pads

Pricing starts at USD$1,999.00

Macbooks

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 2.4 GHz models come with 2GB of RAM and the machines are upgradeable to 4GB

Prices start at USD$1,099.00

What else is different?

Apple has removed the included IR remote. Will cost you USD$20.00

Reduced bater life? Should go up and according to Apple PR it did. They are changing the way they market battery life.

According to Ars Technica Apple used 3 types of battery tests, a DVD playback test, a wireless productivity test, and a "highway test.

Apple used to market the "highway" test number which was the best battery life, but almost unreproduceable in real world conditions

They now use the wireless productivity test number which they say falls right in the middle of typical real world usage.

Macbook Pro keyboard no longer have numeric number pad functionality.

Only 15" Macbook Pros have LED backlighting standard, not available on Macbooks and 17" MBP is a $100 BTO option

17" MBP has a 3rd USB port.

Already rumors surfacing that we can expect the next notebook updates in June as Intel transitions from the Santa Rosa platform to Montevina and the 2nd generation of the Penryn processors

Also being referred to as Centrino 2 the platform will feature 45-nanometer notebook processors, running at speeds between 2.26GHz - 3.06GHz, with a 1066MHz front-side bus.

The current Penryn offers speeds up to 2.6GHz and operate on an 800MHz bus

Apple getting greener

They have a site set up to explain their environmental initiatives

www.apple.com/environment

Recently expanded their iPod recycling program to include all models of cell phones.

Two options for taking advantage of the program:

1) Take your iPod or cell phones into an Apple retail store

2) Go to www.apple.com/environment/recycling/ipodrecycling/ and use the form to get a pre-paid printable label. If you want you can also request a free pre-paid mailer (takes 7-10 days to get it).

iPhone firmware 1.1.4 released

Offered "bug fixes".

Possible preparation for SDK and apps or just to break Jailbreaks?

Nope, same old jailbreaks worked on new firmware?

Rumors of added support for T-Mobile in Australia and O2 in Ireland.

According to iLounge, the O2 Ireland launch is confirmed for March 14th, but there are no "tariffs" (plans) with unlimited data. 1GB usage cap and no visual voicemail support.

The device will cost €399 (USD$605) for the 8GB, €499 (USD$757) for the 16GB. Owch.

O2 UK claims the iPhone is their "fastest selling" device and has high marks for customer satisfaction.

iPhone SDK event scheduled for March 6th

Apple sent invites to the press for a special “iPhone Software Roadmap” event to be held on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, CA on Thursday March 6th.

The invite says, “Please join us to learn about the iPhone software roadmap, including the iPhone SDK and some exciting new enterprise features.”

Images on the invite shows a map with signs labeled “Enterprise,” “SDK” and “Software Update.”

Speculation on what "Enterprise" features are included Microsoft Exchange server support, Blackberry RIM support (least likely, most impact), Lotus Notes, 3G?

Speculation that the event will only be a "roadmap" discussion and release of a BETA SDK with the final release targeted for WWDC?

Looks like Apple will control distribution of apps and apply restrictions as to what developers can do. Free apps may not have the same restrictions. Also it does look like some developers have early access to the SDK.

Sidenote: Apple COO Tim Cook also said this week that Apple is "not married to any business model" in reference to exclusive carrier deals.

Other random news

Apple started airing a new "Everybody Touch" ad for the iPod Touch

Apple is now shipping the Time Capsule.

iPhoto 7.1.3, "...Addresses issues with wire-bound books and cards." Wow actually something specific.

Shortcut for quoting in Mail.app

Many suggestions were offered, including the one I covered selecting the text you wish to quote before hitting reply.

Nat had the answer we were looking for. Play clip.

Type Command+Option+I while composing the reply will insert the quoted text.

Extending Wi-fi using WDS reduces performance

Last week I recommended using a wi-fi "bridge" to extend the wireless range. John points out a potential side effect of that feature I wasn't aware of.

The feature is called Wireless Distribution System (WDS). Apple calls it "range extending" in the Airport Express.

Trouble is devices connected through an WDS connected basestation lose 1/2 the throughput for each WDS device they travel through.

So if you have an N basestation getting a typical 74 Mbit/s throughput, and you connect a N bridge (WDS) any device connected directly to the main basestation would continue to get 74 Mbit/s, but devices connected to the bridge device would only get ~37 Mbit/s throughput.

Technical explanation for the 20" iMac LCD issue

Listener Peter pointed out that "Apple switched from using S-IPS panels to TN panels, which are much cheaper, on the 20" Intel iMacs

S-IPS, stands for Super-In Plan Switching displays. They are widely used in LCDS above 20" and offer better color reproduction, but lower contrast ratios (deep blacks).

TN panels, are twisted nematic + film displays. They are cheaper, offer fast refresh rates, often use 6-bit color instead of 8-bit and suffer from restricted viewing angles.

Keep in mind all of this ends up being subjective. Most lower priced LCD displays you are going to see these days are TN displays and most people are happy with their performance.

Trouble is at 20" you can really see the anomalies from the top to the bottom of the panel. It's just too big. I have a 17" and I hardly notice the issues.

Removing archived photos from iPhoto

Peter had backup up a bunch of iPhoto images to disk and now wanted to remove them to free up space.

Should he just delete the folders in ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/ where there are folders organized by year. iPhoto 6

Need to delete them in iPhoto, not in the Finder. iPhoto 7 in iLife '08 hides these folders in the Finder now to prevent this.

Can sort main library by date and then select and delete photos

Use Smart albums to narrow date ranges. 1/1/2007 - 1/1/2008. Select all (Command+A) and then Command+Option+Delete to remove them from the album and the main library.

Deleting in iPhoto just moves them to the trash in iPhoto after you will need to empty the trash. Control+Click (Right+click) the trash and choose empty or use Command+Shift+Delete hot key.

Office 2008 installation and support issues

Play feedback from David of the Fredcast Cycling podcast

thefredcast.com

LDAP, lightweight directory access protocol

from Wikipedia: "is an application protocol for querying and modifying directory services running over TCP/IP"

For Exchange and Entourage it allows access to the addresses in exchange server.

Office 2008 also had a potential security issue with ownership permissions on MAcs with multiple users. Set them incorrectly in some cases allowing access to Microsoft application installer files from non-admin accounts.

What's that grey spiny wheel at startup?

Play feedback from Trevor

We need a name for this thing, is spinning gear it?

We have pinwheel of death, so grey cog of delay? spinning gear of sloth? white wheel of waiting?

Auto-mount shared volumes

John wants to do Time Machine backups to a shared drive connected to a Mac, but is tired of having to manually mount the volume on his iBook.

Set the drive up to auto-mount at startup:

1) Connect to the shared drive and mount it in the Finder.
2) Open system preferences
3) Open the Accounts preference
4) Select your wife's user account
5) Click on the "Login Items" tab in the right pane
6) Click the little "+" icon to add an item, select the shared volume
from the Finder, click the 'Add' button. Instead of clicking the "+"
to add, you could have simply drug the mounted volume from the Finder
into the Login Items window.
7) Exit system preferences and restart.

Now when you re-boot it will ask you to authenticate the volume and it
will mount automatically. You can choose to save the login to the
keychain which I think will by-pass the prompt.

Remote control your iPhone

Play review from David

Belkin Sports Command for iPod

Belkin Sports Command

1st & 2nd Gen Nano, iPod Mini, iPod Click Wheel, iPod Color, iPod Video

Does NOT say it supports 3rd gen, iPod touch, iPod Classic, or iPhone.

One tool to clone Mac and Windows partitions

Lance had a question I get asked a lot from listeners looking to backup their Mac and Bootcamp volumes with one tool

The only app I am aware of for this is CopyCat X from Sub Rosa Soft

Copy Cat X

Clearing up the Time Machine Air Disk confusion

Time Machine cannot backup to an Air Disk

Time Machine can backup to a shared network drive connected to a Mac

or you can get the new Time Capsule, which will allow you to connect an external USB drive and back up to that from Time Machine.

Air Disk support for TimeMachine was in early BETA builds of OS X Leopard, but removed. No word on if it will ever return.