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Don't push me

Wednesday, 14 May 2008

Today's hot rumour is that Apple is looking to boost its .Mac service with push email, Windows support and improved syncing.

It's no secret that .Mac has been long overdue an overhaul. Last year's boost saw .Mac's storage limit upgraded to 10GB and syncing enhancements; but it's still standing so far away from an essential purchase that it would need a loudspeaker to communicate.

Mark Hattersley | Mark Hattersley | Read more...


Made for a Mac

Tuesday, 13 May 2008

Microsoft has revealed a novel new approach to Mac support on its website for WorldWide Telescope.

So, the system requirements for the Mac version of WorldWide Telescope are Boot Camp and a copy of Windows XP or Vista…

Mark Hattersley | Mark Hattersley | Read more...


iMac makes me mad

Monday, 12 May 2008

Apple can be infuriating at times. Take the new iMac. It is, without doubt, the most stylish desktop computer you can buy. It's no slouch either, starting at 2.4GHz and powering up to 3.06GHz with up to 4GB of RAM it's the next Mac on my personal shopping list.

It's hard to imagine just how Apple has packed all that power into a space just an inch thick. The iMac is thinner than most monitors, but alongside the screen sits the CPU, memory, optical drive and all the other gubbins that make up a Mac; plus an all-new NVIDIA 8800 GS graphics card with 512MB of RAM.

Mark Hattersley | Mark Hattersley | Read more...


First Look: Google App Engine

Monday, 12 May 2008

One of the joys of being a Web programmer is heading to a dinner party, a haircut, or a reunion and fielding the pitches for everyone's dream for a brilliant Web application. Everyone is always happy to cut you in for 5, 10, maybe even 15 percent of the equity if you just build out the Web site that's sort of like a combination of Twitter, AltaVista, Eliza, TurboTax, and the corner pharmacy, but cooler.

Google App Engine is meant for dreams like these. You write a bit of code in Python, customize some HTML, and bingo, you've got your database-backed dynamic Web site up and running in a few short minutes. The magic comes when the world starts flocking to your Web application, and Google's cloud of computers quickly adapts to the load, handling everything the public demands. There's no need for you to buy servers, load balancers, or special DNS tables. Google's application cloud handles all of the grungy deployment headaches.

Macworld Team | Peter Wayner | Read more...


Zune: Epic Fail

Monday, 12 May 2008

Microsoft revealed that it has sold two million of their funny little Zune players since their launch in November ‘06. This shows a relatively flat growth, and a small gain in their overall US marketshare from three, to a whopping four percent. Great job, boys. Have a coffee break.

Apple, in the meantime, has sold 10.6 million iPods in its latest quarter. If one does the math, that means that Apple has moved more than five times the amount of MP3 players in the last quarter than Microsoft has moved in the last year and a half. Coffee break’s over, boys; time to learn how to innovate.

Macworld Team | David Dahlquist | Read more...


Barack Obama: the iPhone of politicians

Monday, 12 May 2008

I don't know why it took me so long to make the connection. Even for a political figure, Barack Obama generates an extraordinary level of attention, and probably hundreds of news articles a day.

He represents (for many people, at least), hope for an enormous change, almost a transformative revolution. And, like Apple's most famous product, you won't find him in Canada.

Macworld Team | Shane Schick | Read more...


Leopard at six months: Does it live up to the early hype?

Friday, 09 May 2008

It has been just over six months since Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard first shipped, bringing with it a slew of new features, a tweaked user interface, revamped underpinnings and - as is often the case - a healthy batch of complaints from users about problems. At the time, some in the Macintosh community even argued that Apple Inc.'s new operating system was released before it was ready for prime time.

Leopard promised enough new features to tempt Mac users to upgrade Apple touted some 300 changes, major and minor: Time Machine for automatic backups; a more powerful search tool, Spotlight; virtual desktops called Spaces; new Parental Controls to help users track what their kids are doing on the computer; Quick Look, which allows users to open files without having to first fire off an application; an updated user interface with a new Finder and Dock; elegant tweaks to mainstream Mac programs like Mail and iChat; and behind-the-scenes changes aimed at helping developers improve their own applications. (For my money, Time Machine, which makes something as dull as backing up your system easy and fun to do, makes the move to Leopard a no-brainer.)

Macworld Team | Michael DeAgonia | Read more...


Will Sony play nice with Apple, or turn the screws?

Thursday, 08 May 2008

Every time you glance down at your Apple iPod to scroll through your music collection, much of the data you are presented with comes from Gracenote's massive database of artists, song titles, and other text and metadata. When you search for music in Apple's iTunes client, the results are largely based on data from Gracenote. And, if you still buy or own CDs, when you slot a disc into a 'Net-connected computer and fire up iTunes, Gracenote is the service that presents you with the names and titles of the tracks.

Clearly, Gracenote's service is central to Apple's sprawling ecosystem of entertainment software, hardware, and services. So when I read the news that Sony is buying Gracenote for $260 million, I wondered how this will change the relationship between the two companies. Sony is itself a major player in the entertainment industry, and the two companies have several points of friction involving iTunes. They include pricing for iTunes music and competition for TV and movie downloads.

Macworld Team | Ian Lamont | Read more...


Apple's games strategy looks beyond consoles

Thursday, 08 May 2008

It's no secret that Apple Inc. has been on a hardware tear. In the last year alone, there has been a flurry of developments: The company branched into the mobile phone arena with the iPhone. It reinvented the MP3 player with the introduction of the iPod touch. It worked its way into living rooms with an updated Apple TV.

But Apple is now exploring another hardware technology that has the potential to realign a multibillion dollar industry.

Macworld Team | Terrence Russell, The Industry Standard | Read more...


Don't ignore the power of the iPhone

Wednesday, 07 May 2008

Apple’s iPhone is a game-changing device, and its use of a mobile version of OS X offers a spectacular future for application development.

I recall in a previous blog posting in March 2007 I came in for some stick for claiming the iPhone to be a “thin client Mac”.

Jonny Evans | Jonny Evans | Read more...


Three companies Microsoft could buy instead of Yahoo

Wednesday, 07 May 2008

Assuming that Saturday's public walkaway by Microsoft Corp. doesn't prove just to be a high-risk negotiation tactic against Yahoo Inc. -- after all, the companies are rumored to have been talking about some sort of merger or acquisition for almost three years -- then what we have is a software vendor suddenly awash in tens of billions of unspent dollars that it can now lavish on other Internet firms.

But who to choose? Keeping in mind Microsoft's relative weaknesses -- search, Web advertising and Web 2.0 services -- we've come up with a short list of potential targets that would provide at least some of the same bang as buying Yahoo would have given.

Macworld Team | Eric Lai | Read more...


Apple: brand of the giants

Friday, 02 May 2008

Apple has won another bunch of awards for being the western world’s number-one brand. This isn’t at all surprising as Apple has spent years finessing its cuddly but cool brand – so much so that it has an almost messianic image in the eyes of its army of cult-like followers (aka customers).

In the 1980s former Pepsi marketing exec John Sculley transformed Apple into the biggest computer company in the world, boosting its advertising budget from $15 million to $100 million. In 1997 Sculley told The Guardian: “Apple was the marketing company of the decade.”

Simon Jary | Simon Jary | Read more...


Opportunism knocks

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

The evolution of personal computing, mass- market acceptance of digital music, and the industry-changing iPhone all reinforce Apple’s place at the heart of technological development – an evolution that’s changing the world.

But when it comes to the iPod and iPhone accessories market, many of Apple’s ‘Made for iPod’ partners seem imitative, rather than innovative. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at a lot of iPod products, and while many are excellent – well-designed, unique, or ground-breaking – I have seen an awful lot of flawed products. Poor quality materials, insanely high prices, or pure exploitative rubbish that shouldn’t be touched. We try to report only on the best products in this magazine.

Jonny Evans | Jonny Evans | Read more...


Big Mac market

Monday, 28 April 2008

With recession looming consumers and businesses are tightening the purse strings. However, the temperamental market may actually be a boon to Apple, according to a number of analysts who’ve been commenting on Apple’s ability to weather the recession while the rest of the industry falters.

Why the confidence in Apple? One reason is that the company is already making gains. According to NPD data, while the PC market saw a gain of 20 per cent year-on-year in February 2008, Apple saw 60 per cent growth.

Karen Haslam | Karen Haslam | Read more...


SDK showdown: iPhone vs. Android

Friday, 25 April 2008

While the iPhone has without a doubt been the big success story of the past year in the mobile phone world, many other companies are planning to release similar devices this year to challenge its status as the undisputed king of smartphones. Some of the more intriguing competitors for the iPhone will be those devices that are powered by Android, Google’s open source mobile platform.

Google said in November that it developed Android to spur innovation among developers to create applications for mobile phones that wouldn’t be exclusive to particular carriers or devices. In contrast to the iPhone, which developers previously had to unlock in order to create and distribute their own applications, Google said that Android would create a truly free environment for third-party developers.

Macworld Team | Brad Reed | Read more...


Is iPhone ready for business?

Thursday, 24 April 2008

The iPhone created a whole new segment of smartphones targeted at consumers rather than business users when it was introduced last year. As a consumer who has tried to use a business-targeted smartphone (the HTC Touch for one painful month) I can honestly say that the frustrations of the Windows Mobile interface by far out weigh the usefulness of having a web browser and email access.

However, for business users coveting an iPhone it’s been tough to convince IT managers that Apple’s mobile is a legitimate alternative to Windows mobile-enabled smartphones or RIM’s BlackBerry. Perhaps most crucial was the fact that the iPhone currently lacks support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, something that Nokia, Palm, Symbian, HTC, and other mobile players already support. Without it, iPhone users can’t connect to company email safely and securely. There is also the absence of crucial third-party applications such as a word processor or spreadsheet. But all that is about to change.

Karen Haslam | Karen Haslam | Read more...


Take advantage of face detection

Wednesday, 23 April 2008

We love photographing people. But our cameras aren’t always cooperative. They focus on the bricks in the background instead of on handsome Uncle Ted, or they set off a blinding flash that washes out playful party pictures.

This sad situation hasn’t gone unnoticed by the engineers who design digital cameras—which is why many of the newer cameras on the market include a new technology called face detection.

Macworld Team | Derrick Story | Read more...


Paradise or prison?

Monday, 21 April 2008

So, you’re a petty tyrant and dictator, hypothetically. One of your subjects strides into your throne room and demands the freedom to emigrate from the country. “Why would you want to leave Macworldreaderstan?” you ask. “Is it not an utter paradise? That’s partly why I had those 80ft-high fortified walls built around the whole nation… just to keep people from lesser-off nations from barging in.”

“Yeah. Well, my boy wants to be a physicist and the best he can do here in your little paradise is assemble tank radios.”

Andy Ihnatko | Andy Ihnatko | Read more...


Three-fingered salute

Monday, 21 April 2008

I recently purchased a MacBook Air. Yes, yes… I know we rated it at three stars. My irresponsible purchase does not affect Macworld's overall rating (which we stand by).

My justification is that the MacBook Air is a perfect choice for a small, select group of people who need a reasonable amount of power, and a lot of portability. I've decided that I'm one of them.

Mark Hattersley | Mark Hattersley | Read more...


Hot Air

Friday, 18 April 2008

Like Jesus Christ, the MacBook Air’s coming was foretold and its arrival was eagerly anticipated... and now that it’s on sale we’re dealing with a crying and bawling newborn that demands to be fed and adored with gold. $1,799 worth, and I know that’s in American money but it still stings.

I had a private briefing on the day that Steve Jobs appeared unto the shepherds in the field and announced his tidings of great joy. “Wow... it’s really sealed up tight,” I said, flipping the Air over and looking for seams and access hatches. “How does one upgrade the RAM on this?” I asked.

Andy Ihnatko | Andy Ihnatko | Read more...