If you are a Web 2.0 fanatic (which, come on, who isn't these days?) then you probably know about Muxtape. For those of you who aren't religiously reading the latest Web application news at DownloadSquad, Muxtape is basically a way to share your personalized mp3 mixtape. Not only can you subscribe to the tape's RSS via iTunes, but it turns out that you can also listen to Muxtapes on your iPhone!
Just navigate over to the Muxtape page of your choosing and select a song. Mobile Safari will then load the file and begin to play it like normal mp3 audio. How cool is that?
A little birdy told us about some unusual happenings at Apple. According to our anonymous tipster, .Mac will undergo a complete revamp that will coincide with the iPhone 2.0 launch (which everyone expects to occur at WWDC 08). We posted about the .Mac push e-mail coming to iPhone 2.0 last night, but according to our tip, that's not all .Mac users are going to get.
According to our little birdy, .Mac could undergo the following changes as soon as next month:
Full over-the-air syncing including calendars, contacts, and email (similar to Exchange)
.Mac syncing on Windows
This makes sense, since why would Apple make using an iPhone with Exchange a better experience than when it is paired with .Mac? If these rumors turn out to be true, then the $99 price tag on .Mac could seem a whole lot more worthwhile in the coming months.
Sometimes, we at TUAW get awesome tips from our readers -- this is proof. A certain, unnamed individual sent us some pictures of the latest build of the iPhone firmware showing .Mac push e-mail. The picture shows the main Settings page with a new button: "Fetch new data." When you click the button, you are taken to a list of your mail accounts, where you can choose between either "fetch" or "push."
According to Mr. Anonymous, while .Mac is offering push e-mail, you are currently not able to do contact or calendar syncing. You can see the iPhone screenshots in the gallery.
It was just a couple weeks ago that Apple bought PA Semi, a custom PowerPC chip design firm. But now that a few details about the acquisition are leaking out, a new light has begun to shine on this subject. According to an EETimes post, Apple considered buying PA Semi back in 2005, prior to the Intel switch. Oh yeah, and one minor detail ... Apple has been an investor in the company since that time. When Apple started using Intel chips, that move sent a death threat to PA Semi.
Per the EETimes story, Apple came along to purchase a new chip from PA Semi. PA Semi didn't have enough investor funding to undertake a new project. So, what does Apple do? They pay off the investors and buy the whole company. Apple bought PA Semi for $278 million -- no pocket change, that's for sure. How important could this chip be for Apple to pay that much money? Well it might just be for a new tablet Mac (remember, you heard this rumor here first).
Scott posted yesterday on a new series about SSH coming to Apple Matters. If you want to skip the learning and go straight to the Secure Shell-ing, then why not take a look at this recent post by John Welch. In this post, he describes how to set up a simple AppleScript that uses Apple Remote Desktop to SSH into a set of Macs on your local network. The script takes the machines you have selected in ARD (or, if you've only got one selected, just that machine) then opens SSH sessions in Terminal, ready for you to type your UNIX commands to your networked computers.
If you want to get the script and start batch-connecting to your machines, visit his website.
If you're a Del.icio.us fanactic like I am, then you have hundreds, going on thousands of bookmarks. How do you view your 1,000+ bookmarks? If you use a web browser, then you're living in the dark ages. I am going to show you a better way to view your bookmarks that may leave you speechless.
Delish is a completely new way to view your Del.icio.us bookmarks. You may ask, "What's so special about this. Can you not do this with other applications"? Well, no, because Delish is a way to view your bookmarks similar to the way you view your iPhoto images; as a matter of fact, the user interface is almost identical to that of iPhoto. When you load your bookmarks, Delish will automatically download a new snapshot of the page and use it as a thumbnail which can be enlarged for your viewing pleasure. You can also search through your bookmarks and view all of your tags in the left sidebar.
Another killer feature is reserved for those of you with one of those fancy new MacBook Pros or MacBook Airs, because you can zoom into your bookmarks by "pinching" the Multi-touch trackpad -- the very same way you can in iPhoto. The only thing missing from the application is the ability to add bookmarks directly from it, although this software is currently in beta and definitely has time to add this support later on.
Delish is currently free while in beta and can be downloaded from the Pine Point Software website.
An avid reader of TUAW, Chris Thomson, sent us a link to a Flickr picture (being the nosy people we are, we clicked the link). What we found surprised us -- a Twitter Quartz Composer composition was included as a part of the Mac OS X developer tools for Leopard. "Twitterverse," when tweaked right, can be used as an OS X screen saver and display all of your friends tweets in a graphical way.
You can find this Quartz composition in the ~/Developer/Examples/Quartz Composer/Compositions/XML/The Twitterverse/The Twitterverse.qtz. If you want to add it as a screen saver, just drag it onto the preview in the "Screen Saver" part of the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane (in System Preferences.app). You can then add your username / password in the screen saver options.
Recently we here at TUAW were asked about navigating dialog boxes and applications with the keyboard. It is really easy to use the tab key to select different parts of the window and different buttons in a dialog box, if you know how to enable this behavior.
Open System Preferences > Mouse and Keyboard, and click the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab. You are presented with two options at the bottom of the window (in the "Full keyboard access" section): Text boxes and lists only or All controls. By default, "Text boxes and lists" should be selected, but if you want to be able to select other buttons in a window with the tab key then you need to select the "All controls" option.
Now when you encounter a dialog box (or window), just press the tab key to switch between the various buttons on the screen. If you would like to go to a previous button, use shift + tab. When you've got the button you want highlighted, press the enter key or space bar. It's as easy as that!
RBC analyst Mark Abramsky says that the iPhone will exceed its projected goal of 10 million devices sold in 2008 -- possibly by selling upwards of 14 million. How is Apple going to get these sales figures? Well, Abramsky suggests that AT&T could subsidize the iPhone by up to $200 for the 8GB model. This would mean the 8GB iPhone could sell for as little as $199 (previously rumored here); and possibly increase sales by 50 to 100 percent. According to Abramsky, this would mean Apple would have to drop revenue sharing with AT&T.
Mr. Abramsky also believes that Apple will start to sell unlocked iPhones (or iPhones without a specific carrier) without a premium over the AT&T iPhones. He suggest that unlocked iPhones could increase the adoption rate by two to three times for Apple's phone.
All of Abramsky's conjecture hinges on Apple and AT&T agreeing to end their 5 year exclusivity agreement early. We here at TUAW see no real reason for either company to agree to that, at least not in the States.
One of our tipsters, Kenneth, pointed us to a Chinese web page (Google translation) showing what appears to be an iPhone running some sort of handwriting recognition geared especially for Chinese characters. According to the post, this is how Apple will integrate Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) input into the iPhone. As you write the character, you are presented with a list of the possible characters on the right side of the input pane.
According to MacRumors, Apple recently started hiring "Handwriting Recognition Engineers," could this mean the iPhone is coming to China soon? Only time will tell, but this should definitely give people something to hope for.
If you work like I do, then you have a hierarchy of folders contained in a single folder that allows you to manage project files, notes, etc. Well, when it comes time to chunk those old files, normally you have to manually go through and remove them; this task can become daunting if you have multiple project folders. I am going to show you an easier way. In this how-to, we'll cover how to create an AppleScript that will allow you to remove folders that are older than 30 days.
Continue reading to learn how to create this AppleScript.
Last week we posted about AT&T offering free WiFi access for iPhone customers at several of their hotspot locations, including a few Starbucks stores. According to MacRumors, AT&T has disabled this free service. However, since AT&T never made an official announcement of this service, it seems possible that the free service was launched early (possibly for testing). AT&T representatives have declined to comment on the issue.
If you got a glimpse of the free future and have now seen that wireless door slam shut again, let us know.
Last week, Apple's iTunes Store turned 5 years old. Now the blogosphere is buzzing with the fact that Apple said they had over "10 million" songs in their library, then later changed the page to say "6 million." That's a difference of 4 million songs unaccounted for. MacNN did the math and said that if they had 10 million songs, it would have accounted for a 66% increase in their catalog in only a month. MacNN has before and after pictures of the iTunes Store page showing the changes.
So... typo? Or is Apple doing some weird shuffling of their library?
We at TUAW HQ definitely have an obsession with Twitter. We use Twitterrific for the Mac, and Hahlo for iPhone. Hahlo provides great features in a beautiful, usable user interface. A couple weeks ago we got a sneak peek at the beta of Hahlo 3 (titled "the Legendary Edition"), but now you can try it out for yourself. That's because Hahlo 3 was released to the public today. In addition to a completely revamped UI, the new version integrates full searching capabilities via Summize.
To try out Hahlo 3 for yourself, just point Mobile Safari over to http://hahlo.com. It's free and easy to use. If you don't have an iPod touch or iPhone, you can get to Hahlo from any standards-compliant modern browser (Safari 3, Firefox, etc.).
It's the weekend. W00t! Time to kick back, relax and read the latest installment of TUAW's best of the week, where we gather up our favorite posts for your easy clicking enjoyment.
First pics of the Boston Apple Store This is one of the newest flagship Apple Stores, being built right in the heart of Boston -- and we've got pictures. I know of at least one person that's dying to go see the Fenway Park inspired façade.
TUAW reviews the Axiotron ModBook We finally got our hands on the Axitron Modbook and Brett took it for a spin. Read his full review and find out more about the ModBook.
3G iPhone to cost $199? Like, seriously, there are enough iPhone rumors without starting new ones. What ever happened to the Mac? I remember when Apple was known for their great computers. What happened?
The "missing" iPhone ringtone If you've been wondering where the iPhone ringtone from the commercials is located, then look no further than your Mac. Dave shows you how to get the iPhone ringtone from the commercial.
Speedier iMacs available This week also brought about a slight iMac update to the current line. Speedier processors, additional memory and upgraded graphics cards abound.
If you are a Web 2.0 fanatic (which, come on, who isn't these days?) then you probably know about Muxtape. For those of you who aren't religiously reading the latest Web application news at DownloadSquad, Muxtape is basically a way to share your personalized mp3 mixtape. Not only can you subscribe to the tape's RSS via iTunes, but it turns out that you can also listen to Muxtapes on your iPhone! 
A little birdy told us about some unusual happenings at Apple. According to our anonymous tipster, 
It was just a couple weeks ago that 
Scott posted yesterday on a 
If you're a 
RBC analyst Mark Abramsky 
One of our tipsters, Kenneth, pointed us to a 
Last week we posted about 
Last week, Apple's iTunes Store 
We at TUAW HQ definitely have an obsession with 
It's the weekend. W00t! Time to kick back, relax and read the latest installment of TUAW's best of the week, where we gather up our favorite posts for your easy clicking enjoyment. 
