The Author – Bart Busschots
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Aug
16
My Very First Thoughts on iLife ’08
Filed Under Computers & Tech on August 16, 2007 | 1 Comment
I literally just installed iLife ’08 an hour or so ago but already I’m happy with what I’m getting for my money. I would consider myself a power user of two of the iLife Apps: iPhoto, and Garage Band (but only for creating podcasts). I don’t have a video camera so I have no real use for iMovie or iDVD. Since iTunes is now updated separately from iLife and free I don’t consider it part of iLife any more. I was a very happy with the previous version of iLife, it worked very well for me but there were five things about it that annoyed me a bit. Even at this early stage I can see that at least four of those have been fixed. Those four fixes alone make me very happy but on top of that the whole suite has had a face-lift. It looks even slicker than it did before. There have been a lot of subtle UI tweaks which make things simpler and clearer as well as shinier. The bottom line is that my first impressions of iLife ’08 are all good, no nasty surprises, and no major disappointments. That really is the bottom line. If you want to find out what the four fixes are I’m so happy with read on, if not, you’re done 🙂
[tags]Apple, iLife[/tags]
Jul
30
Apple’s Complacency Threatens OS X Security
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Security on July 30, 2007 | 14 Comments
I regularly have a go a Microsoft for not patching vulnerabilities quickly enough. The recent shambles with the animated cursor flaw proves that MS still have a long way to go in terms of security. However, they are a not alone. Apple have a definite advantage over MS when it comes to security, they have built OS X on top of the very robust and security conscious FreeBSD distribution of Unix, while MS are building on the shoddy foundation that is DOS and early versions of NT. A lot of current Windows vulnerabilities lie in this very old code, the Animated Cursor flaw being a good recent example. However, Apple are being complacent. They seem to be drinking too much of their own cool-aid and are acting as if OS X really is immune from attack. It is of course not immune, and with Apple TV and the iPhone now also running OS X it’s becoming a bigger target every day. When vulnerabilities are reported Apple have to respond promptly, unfortunately the current SAMBA flaw in OS X proves they are not doing this.
[tags]SAMBA, OS X, Security, Apple[/tags]
Jul
13
Apple See Sense at Last – Free Full-Screen in QuickTime 7.2
Filed Under Computers & Tech on July 13, 2007 | 2 Comments
There are some things we expect every media player to do out of the box, you know, the basics, actually playing media and that kind of thing. Most people would consider a full-screen mode to be one of these core features that all media players must have. Apple didn’t think so. Past versions of QuickTime made you upgrade to the pro version for $30 if you wanted full-screen playback. Needless to say this annoyed a lot of people. It just looked like greed on Apple’s part and drove people away from Quicktime towards free alternatives like VLC. However, as of QuickTime 7.2 which was released this week you get free full-screen playback. Great to see common-sense finally winning out in the QuickTime division of Apple. THANKYOU!
Jun
13
WWDC 2007 – Bit of Damp Squib Really
Filed Under Computers & Tech on June 13, 2007 | 2 Comments
Some of the Leopard stuff was cool, but much of it was old news, and the iPhone bit was down-right insulting. Not really a WWDC that will stand out as one of the greats. In fact, things even went backwards on one front, ZFS does not appear to be in Leopard at all, not even as an option, despite having been in some of the earlier betas! However, at least one of my predictions came true, Leopard has a new look. Just not sure that’s all good news, that transparent menu bar looks terrible!
[tags]Apple, Steve Jobs, WWDC, Leopard, iPhone[/tags]
Jun
8
WWDC 2007 – My Hopes & Dreams
Filed Under Computers & Tech on June 8, 2007 | 3 Comments
I’d normally do a prediction post coming up to a major Mac event but TBH I have very few predictions to make this time. Lets face it, this WWDC is all about Leopard and the iPhone, there’s not going to be time for much else. So, instead I want to just outline my wish-list for Leopard and just mention the iPhone briefly.
[tags]Apple, Steve Jobs, WWDC[/tags]
Apr
13
iPhone on Schedule but OS X 10.5 Leopard Delayed
Filed Under Computers & Tech on April 13, 2007 | 4 Comments
Well, I had predicted that Apple would try get Leopard out by WWDC. In a statement today Apple did say that was their plan, but it hasn’t worked out. Apple blame the iPhone saying they have had to borrow developers from the OS X team to get the iPhone ready for June. I guess the good news is that the iPhone is on target for its June release date, but the cost of this is that Leopard will not be out till October. The only silver lining I can see is that Apple say OS X 10.5 will be ‘feature complete’ by WWDC and that developers will be getting a beta version at WWDC. This means that although we won’t get our hands on Leopard in June, we should at least get to see the final feature set. Putting my prediction hat on I expect we’ll see an extended Leopard demo during Jobs’ keynote at WWDC in June.
[tags]iPhone, OS X Leopard, OS X 10.5, Apple[/tags]
Mar
23
When Will OS X 10.5 Leopard Be Out?
Filed Under Computers & Tech on March 23, 2007 | 3 Comments
I get asked this a lot. Outside of Apple I don’t think anyone knows. Just this week I’ve seen two conflicting reports citing ‘industry sources’, one predicting Leopard will ship in Mid April, the other predicting October. The only official line we have is ‘Spring 2007’. Depending on who’s definition of Spring you use that means any time before June 21st. That really is all we know. Any predictions you hear are just that, predictions. My regular readers have probably noticed that I like making Apple related predictions on my blog so that should I ever be right some day I can point back to the post and say ‘look – I told you so’. Sure, it’s childish but hey, I’m a bloke, and we don’t grow up, we just grow old …. so … lets do some predicting 🙂
Considering just how much Apple made fun of Microsoft for delaying Vista I really don’t think they want to let the ‘Spring’ date slide. However, from what I’ve been reading on various technology blogs it seems the latest developer build is still far from a final product so it appears Apple still have work to do. This makes it likely we’ll see Leopard right at the end of Spring. Apple moved their developer’s conference (WWDC) forward a few months to June 11-15. I think they did this for a reason and I think that reason is Leopard. My prediction is that Leopard will be announced at WWDC and will ship a few weeks after that.
[tags]Apple, OS X, Leopard, OS X 10.5[/tags]
Feb
22
Past Visions of Apple’s Future – MacWorld 1997 Ten Years On
Filed Under Computers & Tech on February 22, 2007 | 8 Comments
By pure accident I stumbled across the full MacWorld keynote for 1997 on YouTube this evening and watched it all. This was the keynote where it was announced that Steve Jobs was re-joining Apple. It was a very interesting keynote because it didn’t actually introduce a single tangible product, instead it gave us an analysis of where Apple saw itself in 1997, and where Steve and the rest of the new board wanted it to go. Looking back now with 10 years worth of hind-sight it’s interesting to see how different the Apple we have is to the one we were promised.
Before reading on you may want to watch the 1997 keynote which is available on YouTube:
[tags]Apple, Steve Jobs[/tags]
Feb
7
Some Thoughts on Steve’s Thoughts on Music
Filed Under Computers & Tech on February 7, 2007 | 9 Comments
Steve seems to have caused quite a bit of debate with the article he published on the Apple web site yesterday titled Thoughts on Music. Steve starts very sensibly by explain how we got to where we are now. He points out that Apple had no choice but to add DRM to the iTunes store or it would never have become a reality and he argues that Apple got a very good deal for customers with their FairPlay DRM. This is a point I’ve argued with Des for years now. What’s nice about this article is that Steve doesn’t simply defend FairPlay and leave it at that, instead he spells out three possible alternatives for the future. He’s luke-warm on the idea of keeping things as they are, positively against even trying to open up FairPlay (and makes a strong case for why it simply wouldn’t work) and finally argues strongly in favor of the third option, an end to DRM on legally downloaded music. This quote is just music to my ears (pun intended):
Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.
[tags]Apple, Steve Jobs, Music, DRM[/tags]
Jan
11
iPhone – Next iPod or Next Newton?
Filed Under Computers & Tech on January 11, 2007 | 2 Comments
I had promised in my immediate MacWorld 2007 keynote reflections that I’d do a more in-depth article on it later but on reflection the Keynote really was just the iPhone so you’re getting this article instead!
In the buildup to his big announcement of the iPhone Steve Jobs showed us a time-line with other great Apple innovations, he was very selective though. Probably one of Apple’s most revolutionary products was the Newton, the first PDA, and it was a flop! On the other hand, the iPod with it’s really simple UI was also a great Apple innovation, and it has taken over the world! So much so in fact that the terms iPod and MP3 player are interchangeable in many people’s minds! Regardless of what happens I believe we will look back on the iPhone as something new and something special. The question is, will it be looked back on like the Newton, revolutionary, great, ahead of its time, but ultimately a failure, or like the iPod, a revolution that took over the world?
[tags]iPhone, Apple, iPod, Newton, MacWorld[/tags]