Apple's Last Year at Macworld!

Apple just announced that this would be the companines last showing at the annual Apple conference.  As if the news wasn't disheartening enough the company also states that Steve Jobs isn't delivering the Keynote but the Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller will is.

The reason for the pull out is "Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, Christmas has become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers." After years of loyalty, is this the thanks we get from our beloved company.  My cup of kool-aid has run dry.

MAC OS X 10.5.6

10.5.6 is out and here's a brief summary for it. This update addresses issues in - 10.5 "Leopard", Graphics,  Mail, iCal, Airport, iChat, Safari, and MobileMe sync.

Leopard - fixed a number of stability and security issues. Including issues with Chess, DVD Player, adds Trackpad Preference Pane is Sys Pref for portable Macs, smart card compatibility, and updates time zone data.

Mail -  improves overall performance and reliability, also a number of minor issues

iCal - improves performance and compatibility with MobileMe

Airport - improves reliability when in a high traffic network

iChat - minor issues and improves compatibility with Microsoft Office

Safari - improves compatibility with Web Proxy servers

Mobile Me Sync - all MobileMe devices will now sync within one minute

Graphics - improves gaming performance for all Macs; graphics improvements for iChat, Cover Flow, Aperture, and iTunes; fixes distortion with certain ATI cards

go to http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3194 for more information

Well Hello

Dong................. (Mac start up sound) Hello, my name is Joel and I am the newest blogger here on Eple Sauce.  Graduated from Belleview Christian High School in Spring 2008, I now attend Metropolitan State College of Denver studying Computer Information Systems. I have been using Macs for 4 years now. I started using Macs when I was a sophomore in High School. It was in the video production class. We made movies and edited them on PowerMac G5s. I fell in love with the Mac's easy to use interface and amazing looking hardware. That xmas I got my first Mac, a Mac Mini G4 1.5 Ghz. Because OS X does not use as much resources as Windows, my Mini blew my old Dell Pentium 4 3.0Ghz out of the water! I started getting into Macs at the end of the PowerPC phase. So I have been into Mac's since the beginning of the Intel phase (which I think is one of the best moves Apple ever made). While the Mac Mini was a great machine, i needed more power and more hard drive space. So in August 2007, I got in on the very first shipment of Aluminum iMacs. So I got a 20'' 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive (I know not that impressive, but it was a huge upgrade from my Mac Mini). This is the machine I still use today. Except now I have two external drives, a 320GB and a 1TB. So thats a little bit about me. So enough about me and off to the blog!

Reminder: iPhone 2.5G like new again.

So I felt the joy and excitement of a new iPhone today.  When I should have been resting my weary eyes I was playing on my Mac Pro last night and decided to take a gander at the App store.  I went to the free section and went wild.  I question with so many quality free apps out there, who would ever need to pay?  Don't get me wrong, there are a few that I would gladly pay for, they are however few and far between.  

With so many free apps to keep me busy for a very long time, I'm content for now at least with my iPhone 2.5G.  It felt very new to me this morning, with the apps adding depth and life to at this point, my 1yr+ iPhone.  Next time I find myself pining for the 3G, I will take a trip back to iTunes, and visit my friends, the free apps.

Next big thing...

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Apple's next big thing.  Where were the rumors?

Updated to 2.0!!!

Having the first free moment of the entire day, I finally updated to iPhone firmware 2.0.  I will post an impression of the app store in the morning as well as overall impressions.  Hope your un authorized updated was a success.

We Are Apple!

Ok...just to concrete in our minds Apple is corporate.  Check out this spectacular piece of corporate genius released at the 1984 Macintosh rollout in Manhattan.  I'm not going to lie, the tune is catchy.  How about those leg warmers?

A brief commentary on the 3g.

I was speaking to a coworker this morning about the iPhone 3g, and we discussed some of the missing features of the 3g.  Some of which sure to disappoint many.  One of the most prominent omissions has to be the lack of video with the Phone.  I recall having a phone 4+ years ago, an old Nokia with a radialesque keypad.  That phone had video capabilities.  How could 4 years later, "the most advanced handset on the market" not have this feature.  The first version was ok without this, there were so many other revolutionary features, but the second iteration?  Inexcusable.  

Whether it's a hardware or software limitation is unknown.  My suspicion however is that it is something which can be remedied through software.  There is at least two options available to the jailbreak community, but where is the official app.  For a device this advanced?  What main functions was iPhone 1.0 missing?  GPS, and a faster network.  Both of which are being fixed this time around.  What about some of the other most requested features?(Flash anyone?)  Is Apple getting into the habit of delivering only what they have too to keep the masses content?  One piece at a time in order to make us pay yearly for the next piece of Apple pie.  

No Podcast tonight!

I know I promised a podcast tonight.  I've been thinking all weekend of something I could talk about.  Something completely unrelated to WWDC since we are talking about that on Wednesday.  Frankly, I couldn't come up with anything.  Instead of me giving you 5, 10, or 15+ minutes of me sitting here talking to myself, I'm going to forgo any sort of podcast.    It's ok though, you will hear the sound of my sultry voice on Wednesday.  I'm sure you will be ok until then.

Friday the 13th.

It's Friday the 13th.  Friday of WWDC 2008.  Friday without a fresh new Apple product in hand.  I was hoping at least for an update or something.  Oh well.  The fact that I didn't have to purchase anything immediately this year was a nice change.  So it's been a while.  A while without a post.  Here at Eple Sauce, we want to ramp back up and start putting up some new content.  Things have changed quite a bit for us here.  Two of us working at an Apple store, and one actively participating in the iPhone beta program.  We should have some pretty good stuff coming to our readers in the near future (both of them).  We are also going to start the Podcast up again.  Expect a roundtable next week, a recap and opinion driven WWDC podcast.  We are recording on Wednesday, posting shortly after.  I'm going to try and go solo this weekend to give you guys something to do while you wait for the round table.  Anyway look for the come back, bringin' it back old school.  ES fo'life.     

The new headless Mac, which isn't a Mac?

I think I found my new Mac.  Ok, so it's not really a Mac but it's close enough.  A company by the name of Psystar has released a "PC" built with parts known to work with Leopard, advertised as such, and even available with it pre-installed.  This does however completely goes against the End User License Agreement.  I'm planning on snatching one up before they are gone forever, thrown into the fiery pits of hell by the Apple god himself.  I sacrifice this Apple clone in the name of Mr. Jobs.  Steve.  Can I call you Steve?

Update:  Already noticing the site is unreachable.  

Simple Finder Tip

We haven't been around for a while, but just wanted to drop in and say hello. As an apology here is a very simple, yet very helpful Leopard tip.

"About this Mac" is something I use very frequently, generally as a means to look at System Profiler. Well in Leopard if you click on the Apple icon in the tool bar, then press option, "About this Mac" turns into "System Profile," cutting out a step. Hey it's all about effeciency.

GoDaddy and .Mac

So most of us are familier with GoDaddy and their easy to use domain and web hosting. Well what if you still want to use your .mac web hosting with a domain registered with GoDaddy. Well with .mac's recently upgraded ability to add personal domain's this is very possible. Possible, albeit rather complicated. Here at Eplesauce we believe everything should be easy (that's why we use mac's) so we are going to help you out with this task. It has been discussed many a time so instead of going through the dirty work we will let you just visit another site for help. newmacuser.com gives an excellent tutorial on this process, very simple and easy to use. Good luck and enjoy.

iPhone/Touch SDK info coming Thursday March, 6th

Apple isn't slowing down anytime soon.  After announcing something every Tuesday since Macworld, including yesterday's announcement of the very impressive Macbook and Macbook Pro updates, Apple announced today that next Thursday, March 6th they will hold a special event shedding some light on the delayed SDK.  Exciting news for all iPhone and Touch owners. 

In addition to the SDK info, Apple is holding a "Key Customer Briefing" which will give an overview of some of the new hardware and software realesed over the past couple of month's.  Newton 3.0 and myself were privileged enough to sit through one of these briefings in January, although interesting, no information was given that any self proclaimed Apple geek wouldn't already know.

Coolest Mac hac of the week

So I found this over the weekend and found it too cool to keep to myself. Found on 9to5mac, and originally posted by Macworld, this little hack makes the screen sharing function in Leopard 10 times more useful.

First go into System>Library>CoreServices>Screen Sharing and put it someplace easily accessible, say the dock or Applications folder.

Next type this into terminal, no need to Sudo:

defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing ShowBonjourBrowser_Debug 1

Now open Screen Sharing again and make sure the Bonjour list is available.

Next type this command in terminal, all one line:

defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing \

'NSToolbar Configuration ControlToolbar' -dict-add 'TB Item Identifiers' \

'(Scale,Control,Share,Curtain,Capture,FullScreen,

GetClipboard,SendClipboard,Quality)'

Now you have a fully functional Screen Sharing program very comparable to Apple Remote Desktop, confirming this bloggers suspicion that Screen Sharing is using ARD's code.

This February, get an iLife.

When buying a Mac at the Apple store there is a little known term for the items those Mac Specialists try to sell you. They try to get every customer a Mac with all the trimmings, by selling you what they call in the store the "Tri-Fecta." It usually consisted of Applecare for the respective Mac, One-to-One training and a reduced price on Apple's .Mac subscription. Now .Mac was never the most popular item that walked out the doors of every Apple store, but for those who use it, they tend to love it. 

Today, we are seeing something different though, for the first time .Mac is offering a discount on a suite of software, that it itself almost depends on to use the features of .Mac. On the homepage of .Mac an ad was placed giving the details on a $30 discount of iLife '08 for all .Mac members. So if you didn't rush and get it on it's release day, you didn't get a new Mac with it or you just haven't got around to iLife, nows the time. 

Go get an iLife.

10.5.2!!!

Just a quick note to spread the news.  I haven't had a chance to test it yet but wanted to let everyone know the much anticipated 10.5.2 is out.  Get your Apple Software Update clickers ready.

That old time Apple feeling

I met a man the other day.  A fellow Apple enthusiast.  As we were talking and getting excited about our mutual interest I began to think.  Apple people unlike others are generally a very passionate people.  As the volume of our voices increased, and the speed at which we spoke increased, we fed off of each other.  We talked about how long we've "drank from the koolaid."  Times used to be different for Apple users. The world was a much more hostile place.  There used to be a place for the "creative" in the Apple universe.  Macintosh computers were very independent from the rest of the personal computing world.  Mac software was the only software that worked on Macs.  Internet explorer was an afterthought as well as pretty much any other Microsoft product.   To own a Mac one had to need it.  There had to be a purpose.  Because of this purpose, this niche space in the personal computing world was special.  You were hardcore if you owned a Mac.  When all your PC loving friends gave you a hard time, you held your ground.  It mattered not, keep them on the darkside.  Keep in mind this was before the iPod generation.  When Apple reimagined it's image, things slowly began to change.  Suddenly Apple and the Mac appealed to a much broader audience...Everyone.  So much so, that Apple dropped the computer from it's name.  We not only now have our creative tool in the Mac, but our Apple TV, and our iPhones, and our Airs.  It's cool to be a Mac user.(Justin Long)  No more stuffy cubicles with our nerdy, socially deficient distant cousin.(John Hodgman)  So from one Mac user to the next.  Keep that fire lit and burning bright.  The Mac is still ours, and at the rate things are going, I don't see things changing anytime soon.  Remember where we've been and peer through the looking glass, and if Apple drops the Mac from it's image, let's all go out and get NeXT box's.   

Macbook Nano?

     So I had some hands on time with the Macbook Air today.  One word, thin-lite.(hey I made it up but it's still one word.)  It's everything I expected.  Thin, light, and ultra quick.  I had the fortune of playing with the SSD drive model.  For the first time in recent memory I was able to contain my new product Apple lust and not immediately want to sell off everything I own just to purchase one.  I still have my complaints with the system and holding one in my hands didn't change this.  While holding it and playing with it I had an epiphany. 

 

     As Apple products evolve, they begin to pick up successful features of sister products.  Coverflow in Leopard Finder, iPod Touch and the iPhone, the included iSight camera.  This made me think about the next Macbook revision as well as possibly the Macbook Pro revision.  I expect to see a multi-touch track pad in both of the next Macbook revisions, and if we're lucky, a solid state option for at least the "Pro".  I am also predicting that we will see the Macbook condensed to a smaller size much closer to the Air.  Not too much however as Apple will be very careful not to cannibalize Air sales.  Now the only question which remains is what will it be called, the Macbook Take 2, or the Macbook Nano

A Real Time Machine....

If you are like me, you always look to what Steve Jobs and the crew in Cupertino have in store for us in the future. But every now and again I like to visit a website called "TheWayBackMachine," I use it to literally go back in time and visit those long forgotten pages that greet me everytime I open Safari.  I enjoy looking at the first glimpse we got at some of the new product, reminiscing about my thoughts when i saw the page and just to look back on what I missed before  I jumped into the apple pool. Enjoy!

Steve's where's my free gift?

So here we are, exactly two weeks since Stevenoteday.  I know it's still early in the day but since there are no Air's in store yet, I'm looking for the Apple TV update.  I awoke this morning to no news on the Apple site, the Tuesday morning staple.  I drove by my local Apple store with no new displays to see.  So what is left for Macintuesday that I can be excited for?  My brand new shiny Apple TV Take 2 of course.  The update was said to be released two weeks from the Macworld Keynote so here's your reminder to keep a watchful eye out today for the software update. 

1 Infinite Loop Cupertino, CA 95014

So I consider myself a fairly observant person, but I found something out today that I had never noticed before. While talking with a friend of mine today about what else but Apple, he pointed out to me that the Google maps icon on your iPhone is actually the address for Apple headquarters in Cupertino CA. Always one step ahead aren't we Apple.

iPhone 1.1.3 jailbreak released

Although initial reports stated the 1.1.3 jailbreak for the iPhone would not be released until the SDK this February, I awoke this morning to find that it is now available to both Mac user's and PC users.  Although initial reports of unlocked phones suggest that the phones remain unlocked, it would be smart to wait for a more definite conclusion on the matter.  

Update:  I personally haven't been able to update and a friend of mine with an unlocked iPhone is stuck locked again, so I must stress use at your own risk.

iPhonetaculer

Like chocolate and peanut butter. Halo is my chocolate, and Apple is my peanut butter. I know I'm not the only Halo playing, Mac user out there, so I thought I would tell you about the Halo stats iPhone app. A perfect addition to the Halo 3 recently played widget.

Pink is the new Black

So if you are an apple geek like me you wake up every tuesday in a fit of excitment for what new things may or may not be on Apple.com's website. Most of the time its nothing, just the same page I see every day, but Today was surprisingly different. 

Newly announced today is a addition to the iPod Nano lineup, the new pink nano has been a huge request among many apple fans, including my girlfriend. Many were disappointed when Steve took to the stage in August and announced new colors on the "phatty," nano, but to many people's disappointment  pink was no longer in the mix.

The new pink nano is still priced at $199 and has 8 gigabytes of memory and it is now available at Apple.com.

MacBook Air or MacBook Fizzle

The newly announced third member of Apple’s ever popular MacBook series, the MacBook Air, is clearly the highlight of MacWorld 2008, but many are wondering if Apple can wow stock prices and customers with this new venture into the ultra-portable notebook market.

The Air, if you have not already discovered it is Apple’s new 13.3” widescreen sub-notebook that weighs in at only 3 pounds , has an Intel 1.6 or 1.8 Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2 gigabytes of RAM.

“It reminds me of the PowerMac G4 Cube,” said Tony Miles, a Flight Instructor and Mac owner from Colorado, “it’s not very expandable and it is limited, but it’s in a neat package.”

A week later and the notebook is still the talk of the web log community, with a mixed emotion among bloggers and commenters alike on exactly who and what kind of customer the Cupertino team is after with this MacBook.

"Say what you will about Steve Jobs, but when he pulled Apple's latest laptop out of a standard inter-office envelope I stood in awe - of both his showmanship and of the laptop's remarkably slim design," says CNet.com’s Michelle Thatcher.

Is the Air aimed for the consumer, no as simply an average customer would not spend $1800 on a MacBook with less specs then a slightly more expensive MacBook Pro or even the almost half the cost MacBook, and the professional users will not sacrifice the loss of processing power, expandability or input/output devices in such a light notebook।

“The MacBook Air, the only thing we didn’t shrink was the price,” said Superfresh a commenter on Engadget.com’s website.

But for whoever the Air is meant for, one thing is clear is that the purchase of a MacBook Air has some influence in the design.

"Every element is super sharp, the hidden ports are a thing of beauty, and the backlit keyboard is certainly a nice touch," says Engadget’s Paul Miller. "It's almost silly how light it is, and multitouch is smooth as butter. With the dimensions and curves Apple is playing with, we can almost forgive the lack of removable battery - almost."

Minutes after the Air was announced by Jobs on stage in San Francisco the blogs went live with announcements that Steve didn't mention. The onboard memory is soldered to the motherboard as well as the battery being no replaceable by the consumer, all features that one would like in a sub-notebook.

"Has Apple turned the PC into a throwaway commodity? Absolutely, says The Inquirer "Also missing is the ability to do anything about the spec once it's arrived. The Macbook allows you to upgrade the hard drive and memory very simply indeed - not so on the Air. The all-in-one aluminum shell precludes not just upgrades but battery replacements, too. This is starting to become a worrying trend for Apple - first the iPhone, now the Air."

Only time will tell with Apple’s first jump into the sub-notebook category as many predict a price drop as well as newer faster models in the future.

“Time will tell. The iMac wasn’t all that popular when it first came out, but look how that turned out,” said Logical Extremes a commenter on WebWorkerDaily.com. “People have to realize that not every product is targeted at every user. And, as always, a year from now there will be a newer, faster, better version that will increase its appeal over whatever this one gets.”

1.1.3 jailbreak

Just a quick note for all you iPhone 3rd party app enthusiast, check out this video of 1.1.3 jailbroken glory.  Too bad they are waiting for the SDK in february to release.

  

Macworld...Our take Part 1.

Welcome to Eple Sauce and welcome to our first post. A mini review on the announcements at Macworld. We won't go over everything, just the things we think had the largest impact. First Let's go over the iPod Touch update. Not all things were great for the kiddies on stevenote day. It seems that for iPod Touch owners there comes a fee to update to all of the same features that come standard with the iPhone. A $19.99 charge for the update is the cost, oh and did I mention it comes standard with all new iPod Touch's. Very Microsoftesque Steve.

Moving on, it seems some of the best things in life are actually free. Making up for their stingy iPod touch move, comes great updates to both the iPhone and the Apple TV. Although nothing really surprised with the iPhone update, it was nice to legitimately see it released.

That was freebie number 1, freebie number 2 comes in the form of an Apple TV update. The ability to download directly to the "TV" will appease many, and the option to rent from iTunes should appease the rest. Oh and did I mention HD movies now available. Finally you can put the HDMI and component inputs on the back of your Apple TV to good use. It was very nice to get something for free on stevenote day. Something's in life are free but the best thing's hardly ever are. That's what we will focus on next time, a small toy with a large impact...Macbook something!