Adobe position on Flash for iPhone clarifies

Media interpretation of Adobe CEO statements made it sound like they would bring Flash to the iPhone independent of Apple.

He actually said they will work with Apple.

So while the SDK may make development possible Adobe and Apple still have more than technical issues to overcome.

Airport Updates

New Airport Express with 802.11n

Time Machine and AirPort Updates 1.0

Improvements to TimeCapsule/TimeMachine reliability

AirPort wireless driver fixes

Time Capsule and AirPort Base Station (802.11n) Firmware 7.3.1

Airport Extreme Update brings TimeMachine AirDisk support.

Safari 3.1 released

Speed increases in page loads thanks to new WebKit.

Apple also says Javascript has been given a speed boost.

First browser to support for new web standards like:

new video and audio tags in HTML 5

CSS Animations

CSS Web Fonts

Designers are going to like this update.

I wonder if we will see a new rash of "this browser best viewed with..." or "This site requires..." sites.

Update also addresses 13 security issues

Controversy on Windows, since 3.1 came up as a software update even if you didn't have Safari installed.

Office 2008 update installs the Silverlight plug-in.

Other Apple updates

Security Update 2008-002, patches over over 40 OS X security flaws including issues with Preview, Apache, PHP, AppKit, CoreServices, CUPS and curl.

Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 2.0, add more RAW camera support to Aperture 2 and iPhoto ‘08 and contains a security update.

Rumors of a pending iTunes subscription model

This was all over the Mac-o-sphere

Basically that Apple is trying to negotiate with the label to offer "premium" iPods that would include "all-you-can-eat" music for the life of the device.

Like the Nokia "Comes with Music" phones where Nokia gives the labels $80 per device. Apple has rumored to offer $20 per device.

Would you pay a premium for unlimited music?

Mac Mini ready for rebirth?

Apple Insider has a piece that says the Mac Mini is soon to get a refresh

They don't give a date

45-nanometer Core 2 Duo mobile chips starting at 2.1GHz with 3MB of shared L2 cache
800MHz front-side bus (up from 667MHz)

Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics processor

The piece also claims that the iMacs may get a jump up to the Penryn boosting them up to a max of 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme processors.

One more step for admin to user account conversion

Bob reminds us that is probably a good idea to run repair permissions on your new "user" only account.

Apologies to Growl

Jacob pointed out that Growl is simply a System Preference apps and not a "deep hack".

I had not used Growl because of some issues I had with it back in the OS 10.2 days, so I should have checked.

People tell me recent versions are fairly robust and there doesn't seem to be reports of conflicts recently with Growl.

Still a valid point to check 3rd party apps that may interact with other parts of the OS when troubleshooting issues. Check their websites and support areas for information.

Example, printing and ssh issues caused by Rogue Amoeba's instant hijack feature (a patch is now out).

Wi-fi issues? Check your channels

Play comment from Stephen

iStumbler

www.istumbler.net

Use channels 5 apart, typically 1, 6, or 11 if you can.

More info on iPhone audio interference

Common to GSM devices

Caused by power bursts that carry the TDMA signal. Basically, the RF transmitter is turned on/off at a fast rate. CDMA phones transmitters are on most of the time so you don't get the same effect.

The sound is picked up by devices that don't have really good RF shielding.

Several solutions on-line that involve wrapping aluminum foil over the antenna area of the iPhone.

Thanks to Mike for sending additional info

Apple missed some things with the iPhone user experience

Nick pointed out some missteps the iPhone engineers made when considering how the iPhone would work in a horizontal orientation for video

Volume buttons are on the left side, so why does Apple have you rotate it left to put it into "widescreen" orientation for video?

This places the button controls on the bottom left

Volume up is the left button and volume down is the right one. Backwards.

Also natural to have your thumb on the bottom and fingers on top when holding it in this orientation. Have to use thumb instead of finger to control buttons. Awkward.

Apple would likely argue that you should use the touchscreen for control.

Bottom line is this doesn't feel like Apple's usual attention to the user experience.

If it simply rotated to the right to go "widescreen" the issues would be resolved.

New photo enhancing app for keyboard jockeys

Iguania

iguania.net

Listener Matt has a friend who was a colorist on The Lord of the Rings and has developed a new and VERY different image enhancing app.

Enables you to move through the entire workflow without ever moving a slider.

You use keyboard commands and mouse gestures.

Make sure you read the help file or you will be lost. Helpful tips like Caps Lock to pause mouse control.

It is currently in public BETA and he is looking for feedback.

Review: Newsfire

Play review from Paul

Newsfire

NetNewsWire

iCopy, the solution for iPhone copy/paste?

Several people pointed me to iCopy as a solution for copy/paste on the iphone

iCopy

Despite the cool YouTube video demo, it left me still screaming at Apple for this feature

iCopy uses javascript, URLs, and cookies to copy data.

Only works in Safari, so can't copy to the iPhone Mail app.

The process is very cumbersome.

Actually didn't work for me at all.

Mac Maintenance

Listener Kasim asks the age old switcher question... How do I maintain my Mac?

The answer, you do very little.

The rubber chicken steps:

1) Repair permissions

2) Clear the caches

3) Zap the PRAM

4) Run a tool (run scheduled maint.). Cocktail, Onyx, etc.

5) Run a bigger tool (defrag, disk and hardware checks), Drive Genius, iDefrag, TechTool Pro

Things to consider:

Reboot. Clear VM and swap disks.

3rd party app conflicts. Identify and remove or disable.

Reset your network. Reboot modems, routers, and Macs.

Get more RAM

Spring clean your hard drive. Make sure you have enough free space.

Clean install OS X and apps.