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Aperture X (3.0) on the horizon?

Andrew Villa — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:41:51 -0500

A new book added to Amazon.com for preorder implies that Aperture 3.0 could be just around the corner coming in Spring 2010.

According to AppleInsider a new book, "Apple Aperture X(3) UNDER NDA: A Workflow Guide for Digital Photographers," which has a release date of May 26, 2010.

The book's ISBN number is 978-0240521787 and according to isbn.nu, it is not available anywhere else except Amazon, suggesting the posting was a mistake and the book is still under a non-disclosure agreement.

The Worst Idea Ever? Ad Supported OS.

J Keirn-Swanson — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:50:39 -0500

This latest Apple patent application isn't for anything cool or fun like touch screen gestures requiring both hands or anything tablet related. No, this is for an ad-supported OS that could make an operating system either entirely or partially funded by advertisements, meaning free to the end user.

While such a scheme might make business heads whir, the idea of a computer that features "visual or audible" advertisements that disable "one or more functions while the advertisement is being presented," sounds like user hell. We can just imagine writing really starting to come together, you're in the zone and the words are simply flying out of you, when all of a sudden the keyboard ceases working and up pops a cheesy Mentos commercial. And all your inspiration is gone.

Count us out, Steve-o.

An Apple Through Their Windows

J Keirn-Swanson — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:15:56 -0500

With the upcoming launch on October 22nd of the newest Windows OS, Apple's Senior VP of Marketing, Phil Schiller, sees a huge opportunity for Cupertino to snag a few more customers away from Redmond. "It presents a very good opportunity for us."

One such tactic is explained thus. "Any user that reads all [these] steps is probably going to freak out," Schiller explains. What steps? Well XP users who want to upgrade will have to save all their documents and data to an external hard drive, reformat their PC's hard drive, install Windows 7, then reload all their software and all their documents. And somewhere around 80% of Windows users are still on XP as opposed to Vista. Notes Schiller, "If you have to go through all that, why not just buy a Mac?"

The process does sound rather complicated and time-consuming, though Apple may have an uphill battle in a depressed economy. While users may be put off by the hassles in reinstalling software, the question remains whether or not they'll want to purchase the higher-end Mac as well as all new Mac versions of software they already own in a PC iteration.

Schiller didn't state whether or not Apple was planning any specific sales around Windows 7's launch date nor did he mention any price reductions, though such a short-term move might pay off with long-term dividends. Convincing users of Mac's better safety against virii and other malware and its greater operating stability are only of limited appeal, but paired with price cuts the effect could dampen Microsoft's sales numbers.

The one thing you can count on, though, will be all new pitches targeting Windows users with older, limping along XP machines wary of upgrading after the disaster of Vista. We expect to see returning characters of Mac (Justin Long) and PC (John Hodgman) get in on the action sooner rather than later.

Apple Final Cut Pro 7

Helmut Kobler — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:54:00 -0500

Apple’s newest edition of Final Cut Pro polishes an already mature, dominant video editor. That’s good news, since every Final Cut user will find clever, thoughtful refinements in version 7 that make life easier. But the focus on smaller tweaks has one drawback: it’s kept Apple from some fundamental infrastructure work that’s also needed.

One of the Final Cut 7’s standout features is a new version of the popular ProRes codec, ProRes Proxy. Proxy lets you encode video into tiny file sizes that even low-end laptops and iMacs can edit, but keeps the video--even HD--looking surprisingly good (though not perfect). Final Cut makes it easy to convert existing video into ProRes Proxy, and for Web or DVD projects, Proxy’s visual quality may be good enough to use for your project’s final output. If not, it’s easy to reassemble your work in a higher-quality version of ProRes and then output from there.

Final Cut Pro 7 is heavy on polish, but we wish it addressed a fundamental or two as well.

Apple has also redesigned its Speed Change feature, which lets you speed up and slow down a clip at precise moments (you’ll see this effect in any number of commercials or music videos). Of course, Final Cut has been able to ramp between speed values for years, but mastering this effect previously meant working with arcane speed graphs. Now you can simply place key frames in a clip and then drag them together or apart to change the video’s speed or freeze it. It’s all very visual and intuitive.

For editors who work off-site, Final Cut 7 has built-in support for iChat Theater, so you can create a videoconference with another iChat user and then play the video from your Viewer or the Canvas. It worked remarkably well for us using a 5Mbps cable Internet connection and should make life considerably easier for freelancers and those who edit remotely.

iChat Theater gets a little choppy when showing video with quick cuts and fast-moving camerawork, but generally does the job well.

Another improvement is the new Share menu, which lets you export your movie to preset or custom formats destined for websites, DVDs, and so on. The beauty of Share is that it works directly in Final Cut--no more loading up the busy, slightly intimidating Compressor application. Also, while Final Cut renders the video into your chosen format, it lets you keep editing, which is a major time-saver. Finally, Share will even let you burn a Blu-ray version of your movie (provided you have a third-party Blu-ray burner), along with simple menus.

Final Cut sports many other small, useful features, but we also hoped to see more fundamental, deeper improvements. A perfect example is Final Cut’s ancient Browser view, which lets you organize and find all the media in your project. Using the Browser is an essential part of editing, but Final Cut’s current rendition, neglected for years, now feels clumsy and primitive. In the last few years, OS X users have enjoyed new organizing/previewing tools like Smart Folders, Stacks, Spotlight searches, and Quick Look, but none of these tools has made its way into the Final Cut Browser. Even in 2009, the Browser’s most sophisticated tools don’t go far beyond basic folders with colored labels. Apple hasn’t even changed the size of thumbnail icons in the Browser--the largest thumbnail size available is tiny on today’s big 24- and 30-inch monitors.

Radio on the iPhone

J Keirn-Swanson — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:04:50 -0500

Like lots of people these days, I get most of my music either from my collection or through on-demand internet radio sources like Pandora and Last.fm. The last time I actively listened to the on-air radio must have been years ago.Clearly, I am not the target market of this rumored in-house app for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Of course, I'd be happy if such compatibility arrived in an update to the iPhone software. As little as I do listen, there are occasions where I have been listening to reporting of an incident of national importance or to a locally broadcast event and circumstances force me away from the radio. To be able to jack into the iPhone and pick right up where the story left off would be a nice feature.

Source: RF Cafe

According to Seth Weintraub over at 9to5mac.com, a tipster has alerted him to an FM radio app being worked on in-house at Apple for the iPhone and iPod touch. According to said tipster, the app would be one of only a couple that run in the background, allowing you to listen as you do other things. Whether or not the app would be a standalone or would be integrated into an update of the iPod app wasn't precisely spelled out.

While the iPhones and iPod touches have had the hardware capabilities to receive FM signals, the functionality has lain dormant (save for the Nike+ peripherals). Apple is said to be working hard to get the app to play nicely with the iTunes app to lead to something like in-app purchases for a seamless transition from listening to a song to owning it. Right now there's a version of such a feature available in apps like Pandora, though those require you to exit the music streaming app and enter the iTunes app. With the ability to run in the background or to sync up with iTunes, Apple's FM app could provide an interruption free experience.And that would be something I'd definitely be interested in.

Patent Holder That Won Against Microsoft Now Targets Apple

Liam Widman — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:52:42 -0500

Apple and 22 other companies are now the target of a new patent infringement suit over the use of browser-embedded interactive Web content. Previous patent suits on behalf of Eolas have gone favorably for the company. In 2004, Eolas was granted $565 million from litigation against Microsoft over a patent. The latest suit alleges that Apple and other companies are in violation of patents 5,838,906 and 7,599, 985. Both involve embedded Web applications. The suit was filed Wednesday in a U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas.

The suit states that Apple's official website uses QuickTime and Safari to enable the viewing of interactive content. It also alleges that Apple's hardware that runs the previously stated software is in violation of the patents as well. "Intellectual property is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy," said Dr. Michael D. Doyle, chairman of Eolas. "The primary reason for this has been the success of the U.S. patent system in allowing the innovative company in a field to develop and market its new inventions without having competitors unfairly profit from the innovator's hard work.”

The company stated that its patents relate to interactive, browser-embedded applications. The patent that ends in 906 was granted in 1998 and the other was issued this month. It covers the use of embedded applications through the use of browser plug-ins and AJAX.

The list of defendants, in its entirety, is as follows: Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Argosy Publishing, Blockbuster, CDW Corporation, Citigroup, Ebay, Frito-Lay, GoDaddy, Google, J.C. Penney, JP Morgan Chase & Co., New Frontier Media, Office Depot, Perot Systems Corp., Playboy, Rent-A-Center, Staples, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Yahoo and YouTube.

Use Both Hands - Touchscreen Patent Emerges

J Keirn-Swanson — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:50:12 -0500

You've got tech vendors and unnamed sources leaking like mad various tidbits about the hardware and software specs, while publishers and content providers suggest a whole new market share for Apple to conquer. Then you've got this.

In a recently revealed patent application, we learn that Apple is seeking protection for touchscreen technologies that contain "unprecedented integration of typing, resting, pointing, scrolling, 3D manipulation, and handwriting into a versatile, ergonomic computer input device." The level of detail and particularity involved in what the patent envisions goes beyond theoretical, in our opinion, and walks right up to the door of tech specs.

For instance, note the level of specificity in the accompanying flow chart below:

Source: AppleInsider

The document makes pretty clear that Apple envisions a device that not only allows for the same kind of touchscreen interaction as the iPhone, but an expanded and far more complex touch response architecture. Are two fingers touching at the same time? What about more than two fingers? Are the multiple fingers moving as part of a multi-finger command or is it simply all the fingers moving at once in sync, as in pulling your hands away from the screen or picking up the tablet with all fingers touching it? Are the hand gestures decelerating, and if so does that indicate a cancellation of the original command request?

While many reports have suggested that the rumored tablet might not be designed to compete in the netbook market, Apple clearly envisions a device that integrates a touch screen keyboard, the patent showing hands in clear typing position. Likewise, much of the documentation is specifically about typing. The document also goes in to detail about the touchscreen's adaptability to hand gesture commands, addressing the lack of need for a stylus or a mouse or really any kind of peripheral device for on-screen controls.

While the patent application gives partial credit to Fingerworks, a company Apple bought up during the quest to deliver the iPhone, the essential two-handedness of the patent points to newer, larger technologies than the iPhone's screen real estate would allow. Two-handed typing on-screen also rules out the previously mentioned 7" screen, as such a size would involve crowding the users' hands together in what can only be considered a non-ergonomic fashion. A 10.7-inch touch screen is only fractionally smaller than the space necessary for the standard iMac keyboard.

As far as smoking guns go, we'd have to rank this pretty high up there.

Address Book Power Tips

Scott Rose — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:58:33 -0500

Squeeze more power out of Apple's quintessential contacts app.

Level: Easy

What You Need:

>Address Book (included in Mac OS X)
>About 20 minutes to tinker

Apple’s Address Book is a central part of the Mac experience. It’s integrated with Mail, iCal, iChat, Safari, Fax, Dashboard, and Spotlight. It synchronizes to MobileMe, iPhone, iPod, and a wide variety of third-party software and hardware.

Yet for such an essential tool, it’s curious that Apple has kept Address Book so bare-bones basic. At first glance, there’s not much power to eke out of Address Book, but we’ve collected a few handy tips to help you squeeze some extra functionality out of this vital application.

Note that many of these tips only work while viewing Address Book in “Card and Columns” view (View > Card And Columns).

Address Book can do more than you thought it could.

1. View Multiple Contacts

Instead of single-clicking a contact in Address Book, double-click on the contact to open up that card in its own window. You can do that for as many contacts as you’d like, for easy viewing and editing of multiple contacts.

Look at four contacts (or more) simultaneously with just a double-click.

2. Synchronize Birthdays

Address Book and iCal both contain hidden features that let you add a contact’s birthday to his or her Address Book record, and then that birthday will show up every year in iCal. In Address Book’s preferences, click the Template button in the toolbar, then select Birthday from the Add Field menu. That new Birthday field will now show up whenever you edit a contact’s record. In iCal’s preferences, click the General button in the toolbar and check the box for Show Birthdays Calendar. You’ve now created a special read-only Birthdays calendar in iCal that pulls all of the birthday data automatically from Address Book.

This hidden Birthday field will link your contacts' birthdays to iCal.

3. Create Custom Fields

If the default Address Book cards don’t have enough fields for all the info you want to collect for your contacts, head to the Template screen in Address Book’s preferences, and click Add Field to add additional fields onto all of your cards. You can also click the little green plus signs to add even more variations of the same type of fields.

Address Book also lets you create your own custom fields. On the same Preferences > Template screen, you can click on most of the field labels and select Custom, where you can name your very own custom fields that will appear on each card.

We've already added the custom fields Hours, Referred By, and Rates. You can add even more by choosing Custom from almost any field label.

4. See a Contact's Group

It’s easy enough to click on an Address Book group and see which contacts are part of that group. But what if you want to go the other way around and see which groups a particular contact belongs to? Simply hold down the Option key after you’ve selected the contact’s card, and Address Book will highlight all the groups that person is a part of.

Holding down Option shows us that this contact belongs to six groups.

5. Dial Your Phone

If you have a Bluetooth cell phone that supports this feature, first pair it with your Mac (go to System Preferences > Bluetooth, click the Plus sign for Set Up New Device, and follow the prompts). Then just click the label of a phone number on one of your address cards, choose Dial from the pop-up menu, and watch in amazement as your cell phone dials the phone number for you.

Our iPhone 3G doesn't support dialing over Bluetooth, but we could still dial this number in Skype.

6. Sort Your List with Smart Groups

Address Book doesn’t give you a way to see the creation date of your contacts. It also obscures the updated date if your notes extend beyond the window size. In either case, you can never sort your list by any other criteria except for First Name or Last Name. If you need a list of recently updated contacts, you can create a smart group (File > New Smart Group) where “Card has changed in (x number of days, weeks, months, etc).”

This Smart Group will contain any contacts that we have modified within the last three days.

7. Export to Sort

If the Smart Group’s idea in step 6 doesn’t meet all of your sorting needs, you’ll need to export your data out of Address Book using the shareware app Export Address Book (€12.50, software.dibomedia.de), which will let you export any fields that you specify—including the Creation Date and the Modification Date—as a CSV (comma-separated values) file. You can then open that file in a spreadsheet app, such as Numbers or Excel, and sort your data there.

Export Address Book gives you complete control over exporting your data from Address Book.

8. Claim Your Identity

Safari’s AutoFill feature (in Safari, choose Edit > AutoFill Form) makes it easy to fill out online forms with your personal information. But where does Safari pull this information from? From the Address Book card that you’ve designated as yourself. To do that, simply find yourself in Address Book and then choose Card > Make This My Card.

When you claim a card as your own, the little icon to the left of your name changes to a human silhouette.

9. Quickly Copy an Address

If you need to quickly copy someone’s entire address—for pasting into an email, for example—make sure that you’re not in Edit mode. Then click the label of the address field (e.g., “work”) and choose Copy Mailing Label.

Choose Copy Mailing Label to save this address to your Clipboard.

10. Google Maps

While you’re in the same contextual menu (from clicking the address-field label as described in step 9), you can choose Map Of to go to a Google Map of that location in your default browser. Or choose Copy URL Of Map if you want to paste that map’s URL into an email or chat.

Clicking our work address and selecting Map Of gave us this map to Mac|Life HQ.

11. Large Type

If you’re going blind (like we are) and can’t see those small phone numbers when you’re trying to call someone, first make sure that you’re not in Edit mode, and then click the label of the phone (e.g. “mobile”) and choose Large Type. This will fill your entire screen with the selected phone number—super useful when you’re walking to the fax machine all the way across the room.

Can you see me now?