shownotes_20111218

Opening
  Opening Music
    Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
    Mandaandthemarbles.com
Sponsor
  Audible
    Free 14-day trial of Audible listener gold
    That gives you one book credit a month for $14.95/mo.
    Best of all you can try out the plan for the free for the first 2 weeks and you get to keep the 1st book credit
    Browse the massive selection and you can even use your first credit to get the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson.
    Audible also let's you browse and purchase per title, but most titles would normally run you more than $14.95 individually, so the subscription offers the best value.
    Syncs with thousands of devices including Mac, PC, iOS, Android and more.
News
  iTunes 10.5.2 is out
    Apple claims it includes several improvements for iTunes Match and fixes audio problems playing certain CDs.
    I never had audio issue on my ripped content and iTunes Match feels the same to me, but Apple says they are better so we'll go with that.
    If you've happened to notice a change to iTunes Match I've missed let me know.
    They also released the Thunderbolt Display Firmware Update
      Addresses a fan noise issue affecting a small number of Apple Thunderbolt Displays and improves stability.
  iPhones and iPads may get dasBoot in Germany
    Mannheim Regional Court in Germany found validity in an infringement claim filed by Motorola in April
    The patent covers ”a method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system.”
    If upheld Apple will have to halt sales of all iPad 3G and iPhones other than the iPhone 4S in Germany.
    Apple is obviously appealing and AllThingsD point out that the ban only impacts importation of new iOS devices into the country. Apple will be able to continue to sell existing supplies in the region while they work on the appeal.
    Germans who have hopes of finding new Apple 3G devices under the tree this holiday season should be safe, but supplies will be dwindling as the case drags on.
    Apple had a small win in the same German Court on Friday
      Samsung removed a claim against the iPhone 4S in it's 3G lawsuit.
      They are sill going after the other iPhone models and 3G iPads. They say it's to streamline.
      More likely it's because a similar case targeting the iPhone 4S in France was denied.
      The difference is the 4S uses 3G chips from Qualcomm and Samsung has a licensing agreement for the 3G patent in question with Qualcomm. Since Apple get the 3G chips from Qualcomm they are covered by that license.
  Apple hires iOS mockup designer
    Looks like Apple has recognized the eye and talent of Jan-Michael Cart
    You may have run across some of his iOS UI concept video mock ups on MacRumors or his YouTube channel
    He has done UI tweaks and concepts for iOS Assistant (Siri), Notification Center and the iOS UI. He also did one for a OS X Lion Messages app.
    Ars Technicia reports that he has been given a 7 month internship in Cupertino and notes that Apple that may be looking to revamp the Notification UI.
    Apple also re-hired former Apple employee and webOS UI and UX designer Rich Dellinger, back in June. Dellinger helped design webOS notification system.
    Apple also hired Peter Hajas in June. Hajas developed a Jailbreak notification tweak called MobileNotifier.
  Guess what? iPad 3 Retina Screen
    The rumor is all over the place and has been "confirmed" by multiple sources.
    This time cnet cites analyst Richard Shim of DisplayResearch confirming that Apple has suppliers beginning production of QXGA 2048x1536 9.7-inch iPad 3 displays.
    He also re-confirmed other rumors that Apple is using 3 suppliers for the panels. Samsung, Sharp, and LG Displays are all in on Retina.
    The panels will still use IPS technology and not AMOLED
    He also claims that Apple hasn't ruled out an 7.85-inch "iPad Mini", but doesn't expect it until the second half of 2012 and it won't happen if the 7" tablet doesn't have the demand.
      Amazon said it had sold about one million Kindles (all Kindles) each week for the past three weeks.
      I totally disagree and think Apple isn't even considering the 7" form factor. This is a playground for lower end media readers that Apple is happy to concede.
      Apple sold 11 million iPads last quarter. Shim predicted total 7" Kindle Fire sales at 6 million for the 4th quarter.
    The speculation of an Apple 7" iPad was followed up by stronger rumors later in the week
      The rumors are from Digitimes and as always are being sourced to Asian parts suppliers.
      Reports claim the smaller iDevice will have a 7.85-inch display with a 1024x768 resolution made by LG Display and AU Optronics.
      As Jeff Gamet at The Mac Observer points out, these rumors are not new and don't necessarily mean Apple is making a 7" tablet.
      In fact Steve jobs claimed a 7" tablet is considered undesirable by consumers and requires too many compromises in usability due to the small size.
      At the same time the Kindle is a force Apple may or may not decide to contend with and since Apple never comments on rumor or speculation there is always a possibility they may say one thing and do exactly the opposite.
    iOS 5 Beta 2 came out and Apple added a bunch of bogus device references in an attempt to obfuscate any pointers to what future products they may be developing.
      Of course it's fooled no one and developers pointed out the references in the current build to the upcoming iPad 3
    The iPad 3 release dates has jumped around in the rumor mill from as early as February to as late as April. I predict a late February to early March announcement with a late March early April launch date.
    DigiTimes reports that Apple may also give the 15" MacBook Pro a double res retina boost.
      They say Apple will release a 2880 by 1800 ppi screen in the second half of 2012
      The assumption is that Intel's new Ivy Bridge technology will help make it possible as it supports resolutions as high as 4096x4096.
      Back in April MacRumors noted that Apple was already including ultra hi-res elements like 3200x2000 desktop images and 1024x1024 icons in developer preview builds of OS X Lion.
  iPhone, iPad demand better than predicted
    Or at least may be according to an Alphawise survey of US purchase intentions
    Based on recent AT&T statements and the survey, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty estimated that 4th quarter iPhone shipments could reach 31-36 million units
      That would be far ahead of Wall Street estimates of 28 million and Morgan Stanley's own model estimates of 30 million
      The 30M number for iPhone sales for the quarter was also echoed by UBS analyst Maynard Um.
    Maynard Um also thinks Apple may sell between 12M to 13M iPads in the quarter.
    Overall tablet sales are expected to continue strong growth in 2012 and Apple should benefit
      The Morgan Stanley report shows model predictions with sales of 52M iPads in 2012, while their Alphawise survey results actually put the estimates much higher at 81 million units
    The iPad 3 is still predicted in March of 2012 and it's rumored that Apple may continue selling iPad 2s at entry level prices like they do with the iPhone 4 and 3GS for iPhone sales
      If there is a lower cost iPad starting in the $399 range Morgan Stanley thinks Apple would sell an additional 22 million units in 2012
    The iPad also remains the dominant tablet in Europe. According to data from Context Apple's iPad accounted for 74% of European tablet sales in Q3. The October numbers show a slight decline to 72%, but Apple is still far and away the most popular tablet option in the region.
    The Apple TV has also made a late and surprise impact in the connected TV market
      Research firm Strategy Analytics predicts Apple will have sold 4 million Apple TV units in 2011
      They say this would account for 32% of the set top box market
      Even more significant is a finding that 30% of Apple TV owners are buying or renting content with their Apple TVs vs 20% for other set top boxes.
      Numbers like that should help Apple keep their content deals healthy which in turn should continue to drive AppleTV sales forward
      We still have rumors of Apple developing an "actual" TV
        I still believe they should license the tech and chips to TV makers and then make money from supporting device like iPhones, iPods, and iPad with Airplay and iTunes integration and content sales.
    And not to be left out the Mac is also predicted to have a good end of the year showing
      Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster has the latest NPD data and while under what was predicted Apple still is fairing pretty well compared to the competition
      The first two quarters of the December quarter show a 13% year over year growth
      Overall analysts have projected Apple selling roughly 5.2 million Macs in the quarter which would translate to a 25% year over year growth
      That number could still be viable since the latest data only accounts for US sales and Apple tends to fair even better on International sales.
      December should also be a hot sales month so the predictions are still that Apple will end up with a record quarter of Mac sales.
      According to Munster Macs should make up about 18% of the companies overall revenue for the December quarter.
  Apple move in Israel
    First it was announced that Apple may be in talks to purchase the Israeli flash memory chip design company Anobit
    That was then shortly followed by rumors that they may open an office in Israel too.
      Being reported by the Israeli financial paper, Globes. They say Apple will open a development center focusing on semiconductors.
    The cost for Anobit is believed to be between $400 to $500 million.
    Anobit is much like PA Semi, which Apple aquired in April 2008, as they are also a fabless chip design company.
      Apple actually already uses their technology in iOS devices and the Macbook Airs. They have a unique flash RAM technology, dubbed MSP or "Memory Signal Processing,
    They are focused on Flash storage and have revolutionary controller chip designs and ideas that no other company has
    Supposedly they would help Apple make flash storage that is faster, more reliable, longer lasting, and uses less power than the competition.
    It also shows again that Apple is focused on bring the entire design chain from hardware to software in house.
    This would allow Apple to tailor designs and specification to meet their exact needs. Then they can simply bid out production to various suppliers allowing them to be flexible on costs and also giving then the ability to ramp up by brining on new suppliers as needed.
    There is speculation from Piper Jaffray that eventually Apple may move from designing chips to producing them for products like the Macbook Air., but I find that unlikely.
    It's one thing to design the hardware and a whole different game to contol the manufacturing. I just see that too far outside Apple's core business.
    You could argue that they could use their ever growng war chest to buy their way into manufacturing, but I think then they would lose some of the advatages that have of being able to source with multiple suppliers and the advantage of bidding them off each other.
  iTunes Match gone global
    iTunes Store and iTunes Music Match rolled out officially in Brazil on Tuesday. Along with Music Brazilians also have access to some Movies for purchase or rental.
      In addition to Brazil, Apple said that iTunes Stores are coming to 15 other South American countries, including: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.
    And on Wednesday it had an awkward roll out to customers in Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand
      Showed up in some users iTunes Store accounts as an option, but after sign up the had limited functionality or didn't work at all.
      This prompted some to specualte that the early roll out might have been a mistake or just a poor soft launch.
      Some users who signed up early were refunded when they complained.
    By Thursday the roll out did appear to be official and now customers in U.K., Canada, Mexico, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, and Australia are confirmed to have iTunes Music Match access.
      You can check by looking under your account in the account settings once signed into the iTunes Store. There will be a iTunes Match section with a 'Learn More' button.
    Even after it went offical though the troubles didn't stop. While full functionality was there access to that functionality did prove to be spotty. The issues are likely due to high demand.
    As a result, just like with the US launch, Apple did halt new signups for the service in several contries to reduce the server load.
    No word this weekend on when and if full signup functionality has been restored in the effected regions.
  Apple TV and iPhone 4S updates
    Apple has updated the Apple TV's software to version 4.4.4 and released a tweaked iOS 5.0.1 update for the iPhone 4S
    Nether of these updates seem to indicate much of what they improve
    Despite having an awesome version number, Apple TV 4.4.4 simply contains:
      General performance and stability improvements
      A fix for an issue that displayed an error when playing some video content.
    In the case of iOS 5.0.1 it's simply that the build number has changed for those re-downloading or who haven't upgraded yet.
      It was revealed by Macworld that the new build address an iPhone 4S sim card issue
        In certain situations, iPhone 4S may have difficulty recognizing a micro-SIM card, resulting in the following behaviors:
          "Invalid SIM" or "No SIM Card installed" alert appears intermittently.
          Status bar displays "No Service" or "Searching" in a location with good network coverage.
    Apple still has a 5.1 update out in beta available to developers for testing.
  Apple's A5 Made in the USA
    Reuters has reported that Samsung is making Apple's A5 processors, not in South Korea, China, or Taiwan, but in a recently built facility in Austin, TX.
    The non-memory chip production line is said to be about the size of 9 football fields and according to source is producing chips mostly for Apple.
    The facility reached full production in early December.
    Neither Apple nor Samsung would comment on the piece
    Reuters points out that Samsung has only one other non-memory logic chip factory, in South Korea.
    Austin is a popular city for chip manufacturing apparently because the University of Texas' engineering school acts as a pool for new talent.
      Freescale Semiconductor, ARM, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), all have operations in Texas
    Samsung has reportedly invested $9 billion in the area, according to Austin Chamber of Commerce., making it the regions largest foreign investor.
    The new facility has added about 1,100 jobs to support the new non-memory chip production and has another 1,300 employees working on Samsung's its NAND flash memory.
Sponsor
  Circus Ponies
    Notebook
    Great way to get organized in the new year
    Set up notebook for projects, research, travel plans and more
    Take notes, setup tabs, add annotations, sticky notes and more
    Can even drop in images, PDFs and attachments, audio annotations, and video.
    Free trails available.
Feedback, Comments and Commentary
  iMessages gone bad
    ArsTechnica has a sort of disturbing piece about iMessages sent from stolen phones to the original owners accounts on new phone even after being remotely wiped.
    There is a thread on MacRumors with similar stories and also on on Apple's discussion boards.
    The theory is that iMessage registers the phone number from the SIM with the UUID of the device. Even if you swap out the SIM Apple's servers are matching the UUID of the device to the number that was registered to their servers and sending using that info (the original number)
    Have any Maccast listeners run across this issue?
  Running an external iTunes Music folder
    Play question from Josh
    I assume Josh has moved his iTunes Music folder to an external volume, but when the Macbook Air isn't at home and you launch iTunes it creates a local "default" Music folder since it can't find the remote one.
    Any local Music added then would get put in the '~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media' folder
    This actually should still work, because all you need to do when you get home is make sure your connected to the NAS and choose 'File > Library > Organize Library…' and check the 'Consolidate Files' option and click OK
      This will copy all the local copies from the '~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media' folder to the NAS and update the pointers in the iTunes Library file
      At that point you could go into the '~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media' folder on the Air and delete the local copies.
      This all assumes you have the 'iTunes > Preferences > Advanced' setting set with 'Keep iTunes Media folder organized' and 'Copy files to iTunes Media Folder when adding to library' settings checked on.
    Another way to handle this since you're using iTunes Match would be to simply delete the copies purchased when you are away from the NAS and then re-download them via iCloud when you are back locally connected.
  iTunes Match and NAS
    Brad is a relatively new Mac users and has a house with Windows PCs with iTunes and even a Linux box.
    His music is managed by a NAS with a BluRay player that supports DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance)
    Wants to keep all his music on the NAS and also enable iTunes Match
      Uses iTunes, but the "Allow iTunes to manage music and the copy music to iTunes media folder options are off"
    If you enable Match does it requires those to be on?
      Answer is NO
    Will the 256 bit AAC files that replace my lower quality 192 kbps mp3 files be automatically substituted on the NAS?
      It depends on the set-up, but the short answer is NO.
      If the Media folder location is set to the default in the Advanced section of the preferences.
        When you "delete" the local copy it only removes the reference.
        Re-downloading the 256Kbps version then stores it in the default library.
      If you point the Media Folder setting at the NAS, but leave the organize and manage options off.
        When you delete the lower quality track, it will ask if you want to remove the original or leave it.
        When you re-download it will go to the NAS, but will use the iTunes managed folder structure (even if that option is off).
    Keep in mind too that even if you set this up to work the iTunes Matched copies are AAC, so your DLNA devices must support AAC playback.
  Changing Airport DNS settings
    Joe wanted to change his default DNS settings from his ISP to use OpenDNS
    Why you would want an alternative DNS provider
      Sometimes your ISP might be down or unreliable. They may also be blocking specific sites
      Additional features. Open DNS has a malware/spyware list. Can also log and block sites.
      OpenDNS: 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220
      Google: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
    Setting it up is fairly easy:
      1) Launch AirPort Utility (Applications > Utilities > Airport Utility)
        Interestingly I can seem to find a way to configure this from the Airport Utility app on iOS
        Clicking on the 'Internet' icon (node) lets you see the configuration, but you can't edit it.
      2) Select the base station from the list and click the ;Manual Setup' button
      3) Click the 'Internet' tab to go to that configuration section
      4) In the settings panel click the 'TCP/IP' tab and change the 'DNS Server(s)' values to the IP addresses provided by OpenDNS (or Google)
      5) Click 'Update'. The Airport will reboot and now any DCHP clients that connect to the base station will use the new DNS settings.
    You can also set DNS servers on a client by client basis
      On Mac OS X
        1) Go to 'System Preferences > Network'
        2) Select the interface you want to configure and in the main pane click the 'Advanced…' button
        3) Click the 'DNS' tab in the Advanced settings pane. It will probably be listing the IP address of the router it is connected to as the DNS server.
        4) At the bottom of the 'DNS Servers' column click the '+' and enter the OpenDNS IP address. Repeat the process for the second IP. You can ignore the 'Search Domains' column.
        5) Click 'OK' and exit the System Preferences
      On iOS
        1) Go to 'Settings > General > Wi-fi'
        2) Find the Wi-fi setting you wish to configure (the one that is checked is the one you are currently connected to) and click the blue arrow icon on the right to go into it's settings.
        3) Look for the 'DNS' listing and tap it to edit it's settings.
        4) Enter the OpenDNS IPs separated by a comma and press return
        5) Back out of the settings when your finished.
  iTunes sort order
    Here is a somewhat unknown feature in iTunes, but can be extremely helpful when adjusting the metadata
    Gary pointed out after my iTunes Match comments that Apple in their purchased music metadata lists the artist with by first and last name and then sort them the same way
    Traditionally when sorting, say in a music store, the artists are listed alphabetically by last name, not first
    You can correct iTunes by setting the 'Sort' metadata
      Select the track or groups of tracks in iTunes
      Choose 'File > Get Info…' (Command+I)
      Go to the 'Sorting' tab
      In the 'Sort Artist' field enter the artists name as 'Last name, First Name' and hit 'OK'
    Now when you sort the Artist column will still show the First and last name in order, but be sorted by the last name
      For example Bob Dylan would now appear properly in the 'D' section, not under the 'B's
    You'll notice that there are also 'Sort' entries for Name (when editing a single track), Album Artist (helpful for compilations with a primary artist), Album, Composer, and Show
    I use the Sort columns to eliminate the 'The' issue in show and album names
  Keyboard navigate iTunes sidebar
    Shannon wanted a way to switch between the different Libraries in iTunes using the keyboard.
    This is what I came up with:
      1) Make sure the Genius sidebar is turned off. Command+Shift+G
      2) Make sure the currently playing track is selected in the main Library. Command+L
      3) Press Shift+tab to move to the selection to the Library sidebar.
      4) Use the arrow keys to move up or down to the desired library.
      5) Press Tab to move the selection back to the main library list and use the arrow keys to navigate. Press enter or return to play the desired track.
    Not perfect, but it works.
    If you have a better way, please share it with us.
Closing
  Podcast Marketplace
    Thanks to my sponsors
      Faronics, Deep Freeze. 5.0 released with Lion compatibility
      Circus Ponies
      Smile
      Gazelle
  Keep emails coming. Audio comments.
    maccast@gmail.com
    281-622-4269 or 281-Mac-I-Am-9
      PLEASE LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
    MacCast Forum
    Follow me on Twitter