MacCast 05.29.2010 - Show #351
Media/Links
V Opening
V Opening Music
* Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
* Mandaandthemarbles.com
V Sponsor
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V News
V 80% of mobile video on iOS
* From a 2011 report on Q1 numbers by Free Wheel. They help put ads placements in online video for clients like Warner Brothers, AT&T and IGN
* The study comprised over 10 million video views and found on mobile iOS account for 80%, Android was the other 20%
* The iOS breakdown was iPhone (30 percent of mobile video views), the iPod Touch (30 percent) and the iPad (20 percent).
V iCloud details continue to accumulate
* Apple's reportedly closed deals with Sony, EMI, Warner, and just needs to get Universal whom reportedly they are close to signing.
V How is Apple different than Amazon and Google who launched cloud services?
* You wouldn't need to re-upload purchased content to the cloud
* Deals allow Apple to "fingerprint" your iTunes and "unlock" access
* You would get access to Apple's higher quality versions if you encoded locally below 256Kbps AAC.
V Even with the label deals done Apple would have to likely negotiate with the publishers
* Might mean the difference between an announcement and a launch of the service at WWDC.
* Might be included for $99.00 Mobile Me subscriptions and have just music add on plans for others.
V Italy says Applecare doesn't cut it
* 9to5 Mac reports that regulators in Italy are investigating if Apple's standard 1 year warranty goes against an EU consumer protection directive that requires a 2-year minimum coverage
V The report claims Apple is relying on it being the local retailer's responsibility to company with local laws and honor the 2 year warranty.
* They have Apple retail stores in Italy.
* The report doesn't seem to indicate, but I think the law in question is European Directive 1999/44/EC says all EU countries have to ensure a retailer could be held liable for all "non-conformities" which manifest within two years from delivery.
V It's the "non-conformities" part that likely gives a lot of wiggle room, also local laws that requires protection over and above the EU law could supersede this one
V The Sale of Goods Act (SOGA) in England and Wales supposedly covers those consumers for up to 6 years.
* 1) Requires 3 things, 1) the goods must be as described; 2) they must be of satisfactory quality, which is determined by description, price, durability, freedom from minor defects; and 3) they must be fit for purpose.
* 2) It needs to violate one of those rules for the protection to kick in and that's the "loophole".
* 3) The item has to fail through no fault of your own, and it must be "reasonable" to expect it to last longer. "reasonable" to last longer is up to a lot of interpretation
V What does "non-conformity" mean?
* Basically that when Apple sold it to you that the product met the specifications and performed in the way they said it would.
* To prove non-conformity, and enact the 2 year coverage, you'd need to prove they deliberately and knowingly misled you as the quality of the product.
V Apple's internal policies and Warranty Extension programs likely cover them anyway
* Stories of Apple replacing items out of warranty all the time
* Warranty extension programs probably cover most of the cases where you might prove "non-conformity" at the time of sale.
V Rumors of A5 powered Macbook Air
* Rumor from a Japanese blog, Macotakara.
V The site says their source reports Apple is internally testing a version of the Macbook Air using an A5 processor
* Didn't know if it was running iOS or OS X
* Performance is "better than expected"
* Two challenges seem to be getting Thunderbolt support working without a Finder under iOS or making Apps universally support the A5 under OS X
V TUAW points out that even though the A5 is a great chip for tablets and smartphones, it's really can't compete with even low end notebook processors
* A5 scores 720 on Geekbench compared to the 2000 score the current low end Macbook receives
V Notebook performance is typically driven up
* A few weeks back DigiTimes reported on a rumor that Apple was set to release MacBook Air with Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt in June-July.
* More likely is that Apple is playing with the idea of an iPad with an integrated keyboard. Maybe a hybrid like tablet device for heavy typists
V Where the A5's are made may be changing
* Samsung provides the current fab, but rumors say Apple has been eyeing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd as a new manufacturing home.
* Intel also said this week that they might be interested in being a custom chip foundry for some of their larger customers. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge Stevie.
* Intel also shot down the idea of Apple moving Macbook Airs to A5s saying they work very closely with Apple on notebook designs and have great relationship.
V iOS 5, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5 at WWDC?
* A lot of rumors spinning on this one, but our answers are just weeks away
V iOS 5
* Tech Crunch fed the monster this week with statements of Widgets and completely revamped notifications in iOS 5.
V Continue to use Google Maps with updated features.
* ) Still hiring engineers for internal projects based on Placebase and Ploy 9 technologies they acquired. but not ready yet.
* ) Location data that they were collecting is part of the internal Maps/traffic system
* iOS 5 won't run on iPhone 3GS according to one analyst.
V iPhone 4s
* I don't believe this is likely to happen and not at WWDC
* Some feel a minor rev of the iPhone in the fall adding A5 processor, 8 MB camera, and moved flash. Global cellular chip. Add Sprint and T-Mobile in the US
V iPhone 5
* Global cellular chip supporting G4 (LTE)
* 8 MB camera
* Thinner design possibly with a smaller "Apple designed" SIM card (based on statements made by the head of France Telecom, Orange parent company).
V Rumor that Apple has purchased 200-300 glass cutting machines for glass suppliers.
* ) Samsung has a curved display in the Nexus S which reportedly improves usability.
* September or early 2012
V Some felt that because the iPhone public relations team was prompting UK journalists to attend WWDC that there might be a hardware announcement
* ) More likely they are looking for coverage of iOS 5, big announcements like the Nuance voice integration, iCloud, etc.
V Rumors that Lion is also nearing completion and might be "available today" at WWDC
* Apple reported released an "internal testing" release at Apple which is typically one of the final stages before shipping.
* Lion removes iSync, Front Row, Java runtime and Rosetta.
V Terminal geeks rejoice
* ) Adjust the background "blur" in transparent terminal window
* ) Support for Lions full screen mode for terminal windows
* ) 4 finger swipe gesture to jump between full screen apps and windowed desktop.
V Apple and Samsung play peek-a-boo
* Apple Insider has a report that Samsung feels, "If I show you mine, you have to show me yours".
* In the case of Apple vs. Samsung over whether they stole each others ideas for smart phone and tablet designs, a judge ordered that Samsung must provide Apple with samples of their upcoming Galaxy S2, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Infuse 4G, and 4G LTE Droid Charge.
* Apple had filed a motion for "expedited discovery"
V Samsung has a counter suit and has fired back asking for the same thing, but the key difference is Samsung announced their devices and Apple hasn't.
* Samsung is citing internet rumors of iPhone 4s and 5 and past behavior of Apple and wants a look at the prototypes Apple is working on.
* They claim they need to see Apple's future products in order to prepare for a potential motion for a preliminary injunction
* Apple is Samsung's 2nd largest customer and accounted for 4% of their $142 billion in revenue in 2010
V Sponsor
V Circus Ponies
* Great for research, note taking, planning
* Built-in drawing tools for adding charts and graphs
* Annotate PDFs
* Multi-dex automatically indexes your data in multiple ways making finding stuff easy.
V Feedback, Comments and Commentary
V Creative use for Find My iPhone
* Last time I told you about someone using Find my iPhone to do something other than locate a stolen device.
* Phil has a similar and also creative use. Play comment.
* Use it to send audio alert even when the device is in "silent" mode. Good for finding it in your house if you've misplaced it.
V Layers in Preview
* David noticed that Preview and PDF Pen Pro didn't seem to support PDF layers
* I tested it out generating a PDF with a hidden layer from Illustrator and Preview seems to just render all the layers as visible.
* Layers have been a feature supported in Acrobat since version 6 and version 9 added the ability to create layers in Acrobat.
* Preview doesn't seem to have support for turning on or off layer visibility.
V Time for the safe Mac talk again
* Talk about MacDefender it's variants and why this is nothing new.
* Difference between a trojan and a virus.
* New scams are designed to steal info by tricking you in to installing something you shouldn't or enter data you shouldn't
* You're data can't get taken if you don't provide it.
V Variant that skips the password requirement still launches an installer and you have to agree to install it.
* Does it by only installing into the Apps folder of the user account and doesn't install to any system location.
V A little perspective goes along way to put the threat in perspective
* "Microsoft recently pointed out that 1 in 14 downloads on Windows are malicious."
* This is a first on Mac, won't be the last by far. Flood gates are open.
* People are the security hole, not technology in this case.
V Some protection tips
* Uncheck Open "safe" files after downloading
* Disable Java in Safari, very few people use it and if you do you would know it.
* Turn on the status bar in Safari and always check URLs before clicking in Safari and email.
V Keep your OS up to date
* Apple provided info on how to remove MacDefender in an tech article
* Apple will deliver a Mac OS X software update that will automatically find and remove Mac Defender malware and its known variants. Security patch noted in notes for 10.6.8
* 10.6.8 also has a note about it updating the Mac App store to get ready for Lion (upgrade via app?).
V Omni Outliner and Notebook
* Now that both have iPad and desktop versions I've had some questions about comparing them
* They really are two different applications although there is a slight overlap
V Omni is really a pure outliner
* You can attach documents, add images, etc. but they are just that attachments.
* No drawing tools
* Focused on text mainly
* Single page documents
V Notebook is more like a traditional notebook
* Multiple pages with sections and dividers
* You can add in lots of stuff and layer on extras. Sticky notes, flags, etc.
* Drawing tools
* Table of contents, indexes, etc.
* Web clippings
* PDFs and be linked or added inline for annotation
V Both can import/export OPML for outlines so you can move content back and forth.
* I typically start an outline in Omni and then it becomes a section in a notebook.
V For Maccast I can do research, add web clippings for reference and the build a section with an outline.
* Another section in the same notebook has the show outline pages
* Those are exported to OPML and imported into my Omni Document for use during recording and export for the site.
V On the iPad it's a similar situation. The apps are different.
* Both can import and export from their desktop apps.
* One thing they both lack in my opinion is Dropbox support, but Omni does do webDAV
V iMac keeps waking up on it's own
* Bob was having trouble with an iMac that seemed to not stay asleep
* Intermittently it would wake up at night even though he had set the Energy Savers setting and would deselect 'Wake for network access.
* Turns out it was 'LogMe In'
* Had it's own 'Enable 'Wake On LAN' in LogMeIn --> Preferences --> Advanced that supersede OS X's setting
* LogMe in is great software, but is aggressive about it's impact on the system. Also adds a login item which is another area to check when troubleshooting startup slowness.
* Disabling that fixed Bob's issue.
* Good reminder that when troubleshooting try to remember what you've recently changed or installed since the issue began.
V Extending the record length on GarageBand for iPad
* Mick wants to use Garageband on the iPad to record his podcast but hitting a record limit of 15 minutes
* The default is to set you up with 8 bar sections at a tempo of 110 BPM
V You would have to manually add new sections or you can change the setting to automatic
* 1) Open the Garageband project
* 2) Go to the project timeline
* 3) Click the Song Sections button (little 'puzzle piece' icon) in the upper right corner where you change the length of the section.
* 4) Click the section to edit (probably "A").
* 5) Toggle the "Automatic" switch from Off to On.
* Now go back to the time and you should be able to record in that section and it will automatically extend until you stop recording.
* But even with that set there is a limit of 320 bars (10 sections of 32 bars each), so depending on the tempo you set for the project you'll be limited on time.
* Apple actually has a Tech info article explaining the limit, but it's not obvious in the app.
V The math works out like this: (# of bars * 4 beats per bar) / beats per minute = recording time
* 320 bars * 4 / 110 BPM (default) = 11.6 minutes
* The lower limit is 40 BPM giving you a 32 minute max recording time.
* Garageband on the Mac originally had a 999 bar limit which stopped at 36 minutes at 110 BPM.
V To change the tempo on your GB for iPad project go into the 'Song Settings' from the timeline (wrench icon) and adjust the tempo down to 40
* Need to do this BEFORE you start recording otherwise it will slow down your voice track and effect the sound.
V Controlling dialogs from the keyboard
* The default option in the 'Delete' dialog for Podcasts in iTunes is 'Keep file'. Nick wanted to know if there was a way to change it be the 'Delete file' button.
* No, but there are a bunch of way to control dialogs from the keyboard
V First most of your standard Finder command will work
* Command+Shift+N to create a new folder if it's an option in a Save dialog box
* Command+period to cancel a dialog
V Also generally typing the first letter of the name of a button will activate it.
* In this case 'D' for delete or 'C' for cancel.
V You can also use the 'tab' key to toggle the selection of items in a dialog box
* This will highlight the element in blue
* Pressing the spacebar will act like a "click" and press or activate the element
* Useful for accessing drop downs. Use the arrow keys to navigate the drop down.
V Closing
V Podcast Marketplace
V Thanks to my sponsors
* Gazelle
* Circus Ponies
* Smile
* Faronics, Deep Freeze
* Stitcher
V Server move this week
* I'm moving the Maccast servers so there may be some disruptions near the end of the week.
* I expect things to go as smoothly as possible, but the forum might be offline and access to the site might be down for brief moments.
* Also, I'm on vacation next week and I'm not sure if I'll be able to squeeze in a show or not.
V Keep emails coming. Audio comments.
V 281-622-4269 or 281-Mac-I-Am-9
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* MacCast Forum
* Follow me on Twitter
V EOL - Shred the iPad
* Check out this awesome example of the kind of thing you can do with GarageBand on the iPad (via YouTube)