Michael Rose
New York City - http://www.tuaw.com
Mike Rose, The Unofficial Apple Weblog -- a 15-year Mac and magazine publishing veteran.
Filed under: TUAW Business, Podcasts
Talkcast Sunday night, special early start at 9 pm ET: Farewell Nik
Last week's talkcast was a very full house and a very long show, as we delved into the reasons why we mourn the 12" PowerBook G4 and which Apple TV ad shows Mac users in the worst possible light (hint: it stars Milo Ventimiglia, from Heroes). Download the show from Talkshoe, play it from the Flash player in the continuation of this post, if you like, or pick it up on iTunes.
Join us again Sunday night, May 25 at a special early time -- 9 pm ET, 6 pm PT. This week (really this time!) we say farewell to our colleague across the pond, Nik Fletcher. Bring your own beer and your favorite Nik stories and come hear why he's moving on (it's exciting!). We'll even be doing some Niktrivia and giving away some collectors' items (a MessagePad 2000 manual and a copy of the Internet Yellow Pages circa 1996).
Filed under: Software, Beta Beat
Delicious Library 2 beta on the streets
In a Memorial Day treat for users, Wil Shipley of Delicious Monster announced via a tweet earlier this evening that a beta of Delicious Library 2 is now available for download and purchase. We've been waiting eagerly for DL2 for quite a while now, along with everyone else.Interestingly, on first launch of the new beta you're presented with the dialog on the right. Apparently DL2's scrolling and display performance relies on fixes delivered in Mac OS X 10.5.3 -- that is, fixes you can't get yet in an OS build that hasn't shipped. Patience is a virtue, I suppose.
Update: Wil Shipley replies below. The beta test is of the integrated store functionality in DL2; the software itself is not launched yet, so be cautious.
Filed under: Apple Financial, Apple
Mac sales spike in April
It may be the cruelest month, but for Mac buyers apparently April was hotter than the middle of summer, AppleInsider reports. An analyst note from Lehman Brothers quotes NPD data with a 50% year-over-year boost in Mac sales last month, combined with a 15% bump in iPod unit sales for the same period versus the year-ago data.Granted, in April of last year we didn't yet have Leopard to entice buyers, and the product line was beginning to seem a trifle long in the tooth, but what's impressive to me about this sales surge is that it smiles in the face of economic uncertainty, increased cost of living and general fiscal heebie-jeebies. Do Macs make people feel more secure and happier, or do they just seem like a more stable and dependable choice versus buying a new PC and having to roll forward to Vista?
Filed under: TUAW Business, Podcasts
Talkcast reminder: the PRE-"Farewell, Nik Fletcher" show
Last week's talkcast was a great introduction to two out of our three new faces here, as Steve Sande and Robert Palmer joined Christina and me for a full hour's chat (along with special guest Liana Lehua from Girls Gone Geek). Download the show from Talkshoe, play it from the Flash player in the continuation of this post, if you like, or pick it up on iTunes.
Join us again Sunday night, May 18 at 10 pm ET for our next weekly installment. We'll have the usual cast of characters covering the news of the week, so don't miss it.
NEXT week [assuming I learn to read a calendar!] we say farewell to our colleague across the pond, Nik Fletcher... he's moving on to greener pastures, and he's staying up late one last time to chat about his favorite moments with TUAW. Please make sure to have a pint of bitters and a hanky at the ready.
Filed under: Software
AOL Desktop 1.0 now shipping for Mac users
The long and sometimes rocky history of the America Online client for the Macintosh -- a saga stretching back to the original AppleLink Personal Edition service, with a detour through a place called eWorld -- has now moved on to a new generation with the 1.0 release of AOL Desktop for Mac last week. We noted the test version (Cheshire) and the beta last year. For users of the online service, the rebuilt-from-the-ground-up client is worth a look.
New features include a revised AIM client that includes some of the bells and whistles long familiar to Windows users (Expressions), a Webkit-based tabbed browser, and a revamped Mail tool that strongly resembles the existing AOL webmail interface. Users of the older client can transfer AOL Favorites and AOL Mail from their local datastore with ease. AOL/AIM is free for BYO-broadband users and charges a monthly fee for customers who use AOL as their internet service provider.
The new version of the client requires a G4 or Intel machine and Mac OS X 10.4.8 or higher. If you prefer the "classic" client you can still download it from AOL, but it may look kinda clunky next to the new version. More screenshots and details at the AOL Mac blog, and see the continuation of the post for a video preview of the client.
AOL is the parent company of Weblogs, Inc. and TUAW.
Filed under: iPhone
Another iPhone in the 3G wall: AT&T limits purchasers to one phone
While the Inuit people of Alaska and Canada probably don't have more than a dozen words for snow (rather than the hundreds attributed to their language), it seems to me that we're well into the century mark for different ways of saying "the iPhone 3G is right around the corner." Today's example of iPhonius FirstGenerationic Obsoletum comes from Boy Genius Report, which reprints an urgent email to AT&T Retail staffers: no more than 1 iPhone per customer, please.If availability constraints around the globe, the reappearance of refurb devices and the steady drumbeat of rumors wasn't enough for you, well, here you go. Those who were planning to pick up a bushelful of iPhones at firesale prices will now have to go in disguise.
Filed under: TUAW Business, Podcasts
Reminder, talkcast at 10 pm ET Sunday night
Last week's talkcast was a lively evening's chat, as Dave, Erica and I diverted from Mac geekery into Trekker nerd bingo (yes, that's not a $6 cab ride away, so no big surprise). Download the show from Talkshoe, play it from the Flash player in the continuation of this post, if you like, or pick it up on iTunes.Tonight we'll be welcoming at least a couple of our newest team members to the Sunday night festivities, along with your veteran favorites, so do drop by and join us for all the fun at 10pm ET / 7 pm PT. Bring your Mac and iPod/iPhone questions along (no, we don't know when the 3G phone is shipping -- yes, we will be talking about the availability constraints) and we'll do our best to tackle them live on the show.
Filed under: Software
Bokeh locks down your idle apps
I'll admit that when I first heard of the new utility from Elgebar Studios, Bokeh, my first thought was of Kenan Thompson's SNL exclamation ("Bokay?") and not the Japanese photography term (the control of out-of-focus areas) that presumably inspired the tool's name. Bokeh is a $17 utility from Bokeh allows you to put applications into suspended animation and free up additional processing power for your crunchiest tasks (3D rendering, Photoshop filters, etc.) when you need it most. You can select a single app for focus, or suspend applications one at a time. It's not the sort of thing everyone would need but in a production environment where time is money, it might be worth the cash. You can download a Bokeh demo directly from the site.
Update: Ollie from Elgebar sent a quick note to clarify the benefits of Bokeh: When you select one app to focus on, Bokeh actually blurs the background and helps you isolate the task at hand. It's also highly scriptable, so you could include an automatic 'freezeout' before starting a rendering pass or other CPU-intensive task.
Plasq ships Comic Life Magiq
It's Magiq day. First announced and demoed at Macworld Expo in January, and eagerly awaited by doodlers everywhere: Plasq's new evolution in the Comic Life product line, Comic Life Magiq, is shipping now. Magiq is not an upgrade to Comic Life, which is still sold separately -- it's a whole new tool, including an embedded image editor and pro-level layout and masking components. A slew of new templates and a Core Animation-driven UI complete the package.
As you might surmise, CLM is a Leopard-only Universal Binary release (it actually calls for 10.5.2 as a minimum OS version). A full license is $45 and cross-grades from Comic Life (including the bundled version that shipped with some Macs) are $30; however, for a limited time you can get a license for $40 and a crossgrade for $20. A 30-day unlimited demo can be downloaded from plasq.com now.
We're looking forward to some hands-on Magiq time and posting some screenshots later today.
Filed under: Enterprise
Microsoft road show for Office 2008 coming to town
Getting Office 2008 loaded and running on one Mac is easy enough if you put your mind to it. Getting it loaded and running on hundreds of Macs, with Entourage data to upgrade and users tearing their hair out over macros that no longer work? Bit more of a challenge, to put it mildly. In the interest of supporting the IT pros who are deploying the latest and greatest from the Mac BU in large educational and corporate enviroments, Microsoft is sending key managers and developers out to face their customers (no!) in half-day intensive Q&A sessions.
In addition to the usual draws for techies (free lunch, nice swag) the road show offers a rare opportunity to get feedback to the people behind Office 2008 face-to-face. The upcoming schedule (NYC and Toronto sessions have already taken place) is as follows:
- Reston, VA - Thursday, May 8
- Los Angeles, CA - Tuesday, May 13
- Downers Grove, IL - Tuesday, May 20
- Redmond, WA - Thursday, May 22
You'll need to register on Microsoft's site if you want to participate.
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