shownotes_20120528

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  Opening Music
    Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
    Mandaandthemarbles.com
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News
  New Foxconn plant in China
    According to the China Daily, Apple supplier Foxconn is making an $210 million dollar investment in a new plant in the Jiangsu province
    The plant will begin construction in October and will eventually employ 35,800 workers
    The report says the facility will produce components for Apple, but doesn't cite for which specific products
  New Apple Stores
    Last week Apple opened it's 3rd store in Paris, France inside the Les Quatre Temps shopping center
    Apple seems to be in the final stages of readying it's new Apple Store in Stockholm Sweden
      The location wasn't certain, but now 99mac says it will be in the NK mall, in Stockholm (there is a also an NK Mall in Gothenburg).
      The rumor says Apple is also looking at potential future stores in possibly in Malmö and Gothenburg, and maybe even a second location in Stockholm.
      For now the first Swedish store is expected to be open in August or September.
      Sweden will represent the 13th country to get an Apple Retail Store presence. Apple currently has stores in the US, UK, Japan, Canada, Italy, Australia, China, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain, Hong Kong, and the Netherlands
    Apple also reportedly began construction
  Apple and Samsung agree to disagree
    Court ordered settlement talks over Apple and Samsung's patent disputes failed to yield any results
    Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Choi Gee-sung meet for two days in Northern California, but not surprisingly could not come to an agreement
    The parties wanted to avoid court, but looks like that is exactly where they will be headed in July.
    Apple is arguing that Samsung "slavishly" copied their designs and Samsung arguing that Apple infringed on several of their wireless patents
  Apple releases 2nd GSM iPhone 4 5.1.1 update
    It's a revised build, 9B208, of the previous update and is available only for GSM iPhone 4 owners who have not yet updated to 5.1.1
    If you already updated then you won't see the update.
    There were no release notes and no indication of what the build might do or fix.
    The timing of it seemed to coincide with the Absinthe 2.0 untethered jailbreak, so it might have been to combat that. Almost immediately however the Absinthe team released their own update to address jailbreak compatibility with the new Apple build.
    Cat meet mouse. Mouse, cat.
    If you really want you can force getting the new build by doing a restore in iTunes.
  New iPad now 2nd most popular in US
    Software analytics firm Localytics is reporting that the new iPad is now being used by US consumers just a tad more than the original iPad.
      Their data is based on usage of apps that use Localytics for app analytics.
      The iPad 2 however still has them both beat as the most popular Apple tab in the US
      Right after the new iPad launch the 3rd generation iPad was in use by 14% of consumers vs 24% who used the original iPad
      Now the research firm says their latest numbers show the new iPad at 20% usage which they claim is just slightly ahead of the original iPad.
      The iPad 2 however is at 60% handily trouncing them both.
    Overall in the tablet space the iPad continues to dominate
      The latest NPD numbers show that iPads account of a 62.8% share of the tablet market in the March quarter
      And when the iPad was combined with netbooks and notebooks (Mobile PCs) Apple also dominated with a 22.5% share. Almost double HP, the closest competitor with a 11.6% share
      If you remove iPads and just count laptops however Apple doesn't make the top 5
    Apple and Android still top Smartphones
      Does this surprise anyone? IDC does have the latest figures though
      For Q1 2012 of the 152 million smartphones shipped Android devices took a 59% share of the market
      While iOS garnered a 23% share.
      Of the Android sets, it's Samsung taking the majority lead with almost half the devices, 45.4% to be exact, sporting a Samsung label
  Siri, love her or hate her?
    Siri seems to be getting a lot of attention recently.
    Apple has launched a series of Siri and celebrity based ad campaigns featuring, Samuel L Jackson, Zooey Deschanel, and now 2 new ones with John Malchovich
    All the attention might not be welcome though because some are starting to say Apple is overstating the claims of Siri's accuracy
    Paul Kafasis has a post about his unsuccessful attempts to replicate the “REMIND ME TO PUT THE GAZPACHO ON ICE IN AN HOUR” phrase from the Samuel L. Jackson commercial.
      I too had the same results as Paul. Siri happily translated it as "Put the spots on Icenhour".
      In a recent Fortune piece they claim sources say internally Apple is "embarrassed by Siri" and "Steve [Jobs] would have lost his mind over Siri."
      Really?!!
    Some have taken it as far as filing class-action lawsuits which I find ridiculous. Apple reported response is, "return the phone" under the 14-day return policy
    Maybe "this" is the issue: Play clip
    In all seriousness, for sure Siri is not perfect and might not respond to some of the exact phrases in the commercials, but it's pretty darn good.
    I think Apple's only mistake might be that they are too heavily promoting a technology they call "Beta" and so people see it has a fully baked feature. That to me is a big misstep on their part.
    Even still I can understand their enthusiasm because it's some of the best voice and natural language parsing technology on the planet and they should be proud of it.
    And I think they are because another report claims that Siri may make her desktop debut in Mountain Lion
      Or at least the voice dictation bits
      According to reports Safari in the latest preview builds of Mountain Lion contains a resource file mentions using a Command-Command hotkey to "Start Dictation."
      Interesting that you may need to press both command keys simultaneously to start the dictation feature.
        I would imagine if the feature is implemented that future Apple keyboard may get a dedicate function key for activating Siri and dictation features. The analog equivalent of the button on the iOS virtual keyboard.
      The feature apparently isn't functional yet, but seems to show Apple is at least considering the idea of having native voice dictation in OS X (or at least Safari).
  More evidence of new Macs in June
    In the Wall Street Journal Ben Reitzes of Barclays Capital is echoing a number of the rumors we've already been talking about
    New Macs around WWDC
    Features include: new Ivy Bridge quad core processors and retina displays
    Also possibly an early release of Mountain Lion to coincide with new Macs
      In addition to the dictation mentioned earlier there is also some indication that Safari's Reading List feature might get an offline mode in Mountain Lion.
        The feature is enabled in recent developer builds
        The feature would probably be because reading list has seen slow uptake by users vs. services like Instapaper and Pocket (Read it Later).
        I think Apple can't compete because frankly their service is limited to just Safari and the dedicated Apps do better on tablets and iPhones. Same problem they have with RSS in Mail and Podcasts in Music app on iOS. They are afterthought features for Apple and they rarely do that well.
      It was also reported that the App Store in Mountain Lion would get an automatic App Download feature
        this would allow all Macs registered to the same Apple Store ID to automatically download and install the apps purchased on another mac using the same account
        In the same way you can set up your iOS apps and devices to do today.
    The belief is that at least Macbook Airs, a new 15-inch Macbook Pro, and iMacs would be in the cards
    There are also some rumblings of there finally being a Mac Pro update.
    I haven't heard anything about a new Mac Mini, but typically that is the last model to get updated or is bumped quietly when new models start arriving
  Facebook hires ex-Apple folk
    A report in the New York Times says Facebook has been hiring ex-Apple engineers to help it produce a smartphone due out sometime next year.
    According the AllThingsD Facebook has an ongoing project started in 2011 codenamed "Buffy". The hardware is said to be in development in conjunction with HTC and will run an Android based OS.
    Facebook also supposedly had a smartphone in the works in 2010, but that project was scraped.
    Now it seems they have hired 6 former Apple engineers who worked on the iPhone and 1 who worked on the iPad.
    The rumor is that many of the failed attempts so far are due to the lack of in-house hardware engineering talent, so hiring outside would be a good fix.
    Facebook did not deny or confirm that they are working on a smartphone, but hiring former Apple mobile hardware engineers and the rumors of recent hardware projects are pretty good indicators that they likely are.
    So does it make sense for a web software company like Facebook to get into the smartphone hardware business? Google did it with limited success.
  Sir Jonathan Ive not leaving Apple
    Ive was knighted for a second time last week and in an interview given to the BBC squashed rumors that he was considering leaving Apple
    In the interview Ive claimed he wants to stay with the same team he's been working with for the past 15 years
    Since 2011 there have been rumors that Ive wanted to return to England so his kids could go to school there.
    During a speech after his knighting ceremony he did credit the UK school system British heritage for helping shape his design education
    Ive also gave an interview to the London Telegraph where he was asked which products he'd hope he'd be remembered for. His response was, "…what we’re working on now feels like the most important and the best work we’ve done, and so it would be what we’re working on right now, which of course I can’t tell you about."
  Apple's North Carolina data center gets greener
    North Carolina Utilities Commission has approved Apple's plan to build a 4.8-megawatt fuel cell facility near Apple's data center in Maiden.
    The cells are one of two types of "green" energy Apple plans to employ to at least helped provide a portion of the energy needed to run the massive data center
    Earlier Apple also received approval to move forward with construction on a a 20-megawatt photovoltaic solar facility that will provide the other source of green power. The solar farm will be built on 200 acres of land near the facility.
    Apple already uses some of the fuel cells, called Bloom Boxes and made by Bloom Energy in Sunnyvale, CA, at it's offices in Cupertino.
    The cells use natural gas, which Apple will get from a local pipeline, to generate electricity. The byproducts of the fuel cells are CO2 and water. Apple will also reportedly get some of the natural gas to power the cells from a separate biogas supplier making the system even greener.
    When it's finished Apple will have the largest private fuel cell energy facility in the nation. Apple claims that when both projects are completed they will be able to run the data center completely on renewable energy. They also plan to sell any excess back to Duke Energy.
    Greenpeace and others have been arguing that Apple is underestimating their data center energy needs. They claim Apple will need 100 megawatts to power the facility Apple claims their estimates are 20 megawatts
      Greenpeace based their estimate purely on the amount of Apple spent on the facility (1 billion) and the size of the data center
      Apple and others claim the figures don't account for the portions of the cost that will go to building the solar farm and fuel cell facilities and also don;t factor the non-data and non-computer areas of the facility (hallways, walkways, restrooms, lobby area, etc.)
  4-inch iPhone Screen seems inevitable
    We are getting strong reports from multiple sources that claim then next iPhone will have a 3.95" or 4" (3.99) screen
    Images surfaced online of what was claimed to be a taller iPod touch front panel which would accommodate such a taller screen.
    Mosts reports seem to be consistent that the new larger display would be taller, and not much wider, if at all. It's also believed that the display would be fit into a new design that retains the current iPhones height and width dimensions. Achieved by reducing the areas around the home button and speaker hole/FaceTime camera to make room.
    To keep the "retina" resolution the belief is the new iPhone would move to an almost 16:9 aspect ratio
      640 x 1136 ppi
      give room for a 5th row of icons on the home screen
      This would be better for new HD movie and TV content
    John Gruber points out something interesting that makes a lot of sense when making a screen, "taller/wider"
      iOS apps are expected, to a certain degree, to scale in one direction
      If you use an app while your on a phone call there is a double height status bar and the apps window is reduced to accommodate the extra pixels.
      If the developer is using native UI controls then many already would scale appropriately. List vies for example would just expand or tighten the padding pixels around their lines.
    Bloomberg was one of the organizations confirming the larger iPhone screen reports and they claim the project was one of the last design projects Steve was working on when he passed.
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Feedback, Comments and Commentary
  iTunes: Find Exact Duplicates
    In the last episode I covered some ways to identify and remove duplicates in OS X.
    As part of that I discussed iTunes and using the File > Display Duplicates feature
    But as listener Mike pointed out in an email that can sometimes yield duplicates that aren't truly duplicates
    You may have some tracks that are the same song and artists, but from a different album. Say the main album and then again on a greatest hits album
    You may also have a track that was the same track, but a different artist
    Luckily iTunes has another "Find Duplicates" option. If you hold the option key down and choose, File > Display Exact Duplicates
    In this case it will only display duplicates where all (or most) of the metadata matches.
  Alternatives to iWeb Hosting
    With Mobile Me about to meet it's demise on June 30th many have asked me about what are the alternatives for Mobile Me iWeb hosting.
    I did an in-depth episode on this for Maccast Members. Episode 093 - The Death of iWeb
      If you'd like to become a member you can get 6 month or a yearly subscription for 20% off with the code 'maccast20'
    I thought I'd give a quick summary of the options though
    First and foremost I think there seems to be a big misconception that iWeb itself will somehow cease to work on June 30th and if you haven;t moved your site it will suddenly go "poof".
      That isn't the case, well not entirely.
      If you don't move the hosting and/or any custom domain then yes the site will go poof.
      You can still use iWeb to manage and edit and create your site.
      You will have to get hosting from another service and publish using FTP
        I use Dreamhost and have been happy with them, but there are numerous other plans.
      Most of your templates, pages, etc will continue to work fine when published via FTP, but there are some features supported by Mobile Me hosting that won't work under FTP publishing
        RSS feeds and Subscribe buttons won;t work unless you enter your site URL in the settings
          Make sure you enter your website’s address in the Website URL field in the Website Publishing Settings window.
        Password Protected sites
          Won't work from iWeb, but many hosting site will allow you to add that to the folder published by iWeb via FTP after you publish by going though a control panel
          You may need to re-set-up this protection each time you re-publish from iWeb
        Hit counter
          You could find code for one fairly easily online and add it in iWeb using an HTML Snippet.
        Comments
          You could use a web based service like Disqus and again add the code using the HTML Snippet Widget
      If you decide you just want to give up on iWeb entirely there are basically 2 routes
        New editor, hosting, and FTP publishing
        Use a web based service
      Alternative Editors
        Rapidweaver
        Sandvox
        Freeway Express
        Coda
      Hosted Service
        Wordpress.com (free). Starting at $13 for custom domain, more storage, etc.
        Squarespace ($20/mo)
  Corrupt IMAP attachments in Mail
    It's amazing how timing is everything. A week ago I got a number image attachments from a client in one of my IMAP accounts in MAIL.
    Instead of actually coming through as attachments they showed up as long blocks of base64 encoded text that showed up inline after the email message.
      They had header text that kind of looked like this:

      --Apple-Mail-3-1071339734
      Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
      Content-Type: application/applefile;
      name=file.doc
      Content-Disposition: attachment;
      filename="file.doc"

    I ended up having the client re-send the attachments and all was fine, but I didn't have time to look into why the original attachments got garbled
    Then I saw a MGG Answers post over on TMO that addressed my exact same issue.
      Apparently, according to Jim, this has been a known issue in Mail since the Tiger days
    The fix is to rebuild the mailbox
      Make sure you have a backup
      Select the mailbox in the sidebar in Mail
      Then go to Mailbox > Rebuild
      If the mailbox has a lot of email in it this process can take some time
      You can use the Window > Activity window to monitor the progress
    I did this on my Mailbox and it did indeed fix the attachments
    If you'd want to just rebuild the few messages that have the issue you could create a new temporary IMAP folder (mailbox) and move the messages into that and rebuild it.
      Under Mailbox > New Mailbox…
      Create it under the account that is having the issue
      Then select the message in the message list and use the Message > Move To… or Message > Copy To… option to move the message to your new temporary Mailbox
      Then you can select that Mailbox and run the Mailbox . Rebuild option from the menu
    If for some reason you removed the messages from the IMAP server. i.e. copied them to an 'On My Mac' local folder the Rebuild trick won't work.
    In that case you'll have to copy the encoded text into a text document and save it.
      Make sure NOT to copy the header information and only the encoded text.
      Save the file some place where you can locate it easily. Maybe a temporary folder on the desktop.
      Then launch the Terminal and run the following command:
        openssl base64 -d -in extracted_file.txt -out repaired_file.jpg
        Replace the 'extracted_file.txt' bit in the command with the full path to your extracted file and the 'repaired_file.jpg' with the name you want the final repair attachment to have
  Set up iOS mac.com email after iCloud
    On the last show I discussed that even after the iCloud transition that users with Macs that can't transition to iCloud can still migrate and keep their .Me email addresses.
    Somewhat related to that, Tobin had this question:
    Play question from Tobin
    I think this has to do with whatever email (username) you put in when you set up your account on your device.
    I found an article that on iOS 4.2 it would force the email address back to @me.com if you entered it as @mac.com, but that was reportedly fixed in the 4.3 update.
    This only works if you had an original @mac.com address. If you never had that, you can only use @me.com
    I also had a question about what would happen to Mobile Me, @me.com aliases
      these are additional @me.com addresses you could create and set up that would end up in your @me.com inbox for your main account
      Useful if you want to create a public address, but maybe keep your "real" @me.com address, which might be your Apple ID, more private.
      If you had these set up prior to the iCloud migration you will continue to have them and they will continue to work.
      Under iCloud you will be allowed to create up to 3 aliases
        Log into iCloud.com
        Go to the Mail section (app)
        Click the Settings (cog) in the upper right
        Click 'Accounts'
        In the left column, click Add an alias
      If you have more than 3 old aliases you can delete them, but you will not be allowed to create more as long as you have 3 or more existing aliases
Closing
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