After a long wait, Squarespace customers finally have an iPhone app of their own. Squarespace is a hosted blogging/CMS service that competes with the likes of WordPress.com and Typepad. Having used all three, I can say that interacting with Squarespace (posting, changing your site's look and feel, etc.) is unlike the others. Instead of a separate control panel/dashboard, Squarespace previews changes in real time on the same screen. It's really nice.

The iPhone app [iTunes link] seems to be an extension of its browser-based sibling. For example, check out the live preview mode pictured at right. You can also manage multiple accounts, post, upload multiple images at once (awesome) view stats and more. The UI looks nice as well.

While bloggers on other platforms have had compatible apps in the App Store for a while now, this is Squarespace's first solution. We're eager to play around with it. Squarespace for iPhone is free and requires a paid Squarespace account.

Most American television viewers have been treated recently to endless reruns of Verizon's "iDon't" advertisements. These ads attack the iPhone, playing music that's similar to that played in iPhone ads while displaying a series of messages stating such brilliant and cutting phrases as "iDon't have a real keyboard," "iDon't run simultaneous apps," and so on.

Mac fan and Chicago Sun-Times writer Andy Ihnatko was apparently as fed up with the ads as most of us here at TUAW, so he took Verizon to task in a Wednesday column. In the column, he takes on Verizon's claims and for the most part finds them lacking or at least overblown.In describing the faults of the ad campaign, Ihnatko says "Its claims about the limitations of the iPhone are baloney (Mostly.)"

Andy has been testing the new Motorola Droid phone for an upcoming review, and he does like the phone -- a lot. But his take on the ad campaign is right on the mark: "Verizon's 'iDon't' is a terrible commercial. It provokes experienced iPhone users like me to get all Tyra Banks on the phone and the Android 2.0 OS. That can't possibly be good for business."

Don't mess with us iPhone fans, Verizon...

[via Chicago Sun-Times]

Walt Mossberg, the curmudgeonly, smooth-pated personal technology blogger at The Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital, has released his fall computer-buying guide. And when Walt talks, people listen.

Mossberg is usually very kind to Apple products, which probably explains why he gets the latest and greatest equipment sent to him by the guys in Cupertino prior to release, and we don't. In his latest guide, he says some surprisingly nice things about Windows PCs. That's mostly due to the progress in usability and friendliness brought about by the recent release of Windows 7. But he also goes on to say some very interesting things in his lead-in post, titled "Operating Systems Provide New Choices in PC Shopping."

While Walt points out the obvious -- that Windows PCs are usually less expensive than Macs and that Windows 7 has closed the gap between the operating systems in terms of user-friendliness -- he also goes on to say some very nice things about Macs:

But Apple's hardware is stylish and sturdy, and, in my tests, Macs usually boot faster than Windows machines. Plus, Apple's chain of retail stores offers a better buying experience and strong post-purchase support. Also, in my view, Apple's built-in software still has the edge. Snow Leopard is fast and reliable. And it comes with a full suite of excellent built-in programs, including email, photo and video software. Microsoft has stripped Windows 7 of such programs. Some PC makers have restored some or all of these in certain models, although I consider Apple's counterparts better. Another huge plus: The Mac isn't susceptible to the vast majority of viruses and spyware.

That's high praise again from the Prince of Personal Tech, and a list of good arguments for us "Apple Fanboys" to bring up when we're faced with Windows-lovers.

Like a lot of my fellow space geeks, I was watching the live feed from Spaceflight Now this morning for the launch of the Ares 1-X test vehicle. Unfortunately, the launch was scrubbed, but I was happy to see that the three guys doing the coverage this morning were all using MacBook Pros.

The MacBook Pros were all being used to do blogging and tweeting during the launch coverage, as well as to receive updates from NASA.

The coverage was being provided by former CNN talking head and well-known aviation enthusiast Miles O'Brien (center), veteran TV reporter David Waters (at left), and Astronaut Leroy Chiao (at right). While the weather didn't cooperate for the launch this morning, that gives TUAW readers another chance tomorrow morning to watch and listen to the launch, and to admire all that gleaming aluminum in the morning sun -- that's the MacBook Pros, not the Ares 1-X.

Whether you think he's the voice of reason on the Web or an annoying pest, when Robert Scoble over at the Scobleizer blog speaks, people listen.

Yesterday, a Twitter follower of Mr. Scoble stated that he thought "iPhone users were beyond reason," referring to the almost unnatural fixation that most of us have for our phones. Scoble brought up a very good point in his blogged response -- every app that comes out on the market (more than 85,000 at this point) provides another way to customize your iPhone to the way that you live and work.

In order for another manufacturer to come out with a device that will pry that iPhone out of our fingers, they're going to need to exactly duplicate or surpass the functionality that we've become used to. That's not likely to happen, in Scoble's opinion, because the 85,000+ apps that filter down to a couple of dozen (or hundred) apps on each iPhone turn that iPhone into something completely unique. It's not likely that any iPhone user is going to want to give up that up unless every app in the special combination on his or her iPhone is replaced by something better.

It makes sense. I've worked with all of the other smartphone platforms, and in no case have there been compelling apps that hold me to the platform. With the iPhone, I've tried thousands of apps, kept about a hundred, and those hundred apps let me work and play the way I want to. iPhone developers have also made sure that the apps are simple to use, too.

Perhaps the Android or some other smartphone platform will eventually evolve to the point that there is a critical mass of compelling apps that provides the same magical combination of power, ease-of-use, and fun, but until that time the iPhone will reign supreme. That's even despite Microsoft CEO and iPhone hater Steve Ballmer's recent assertion about the iPhone, "That's why they've got 75,000 applications -- they're all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone."

Obviously Mr. Ballmer hasn't used an iPhone, or he'd realize that the iPhone is much more than Web apps. That might also give Ballmer a clue why Windows phones aren't even on the radar for most smartphone buyers today.

It's 09/09/09 -- finally!

Apple events are always a lot of fun, and the speculation leading up to today's press event has been incredible. Will Steve Jobs appear at the event? Are we going to see a new version of iTunes and some new iPods? We're always wondering if there will be "one more thing."

Join us today at 10 AM PDT / 1 PM EDT for the TUAW liveblog of this event. As usual, you can add your questions to the mix, and a full complement of TUAW bloggers will be on hand. We will have our buddies Daniel Brusilovsky (of Teens In Tech) and Sam Levin onsite to give us the minute-by-minute update of what's transpiring. We'll also keep one eye on the other liveblog coverage from Engadget, Ars Technica, gdgt, Gizmodo, Macworld & elsewhere.

You can keep an eye on our main Twitter feed for the headline announcements, and our Ask TUAW account is always there for your questions and inquiries. You can also join the fun over on our Facebook page during and after the event.

Here's a link to the liveblog page, for you early birds.

If you joined us Friday night for the Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard liveblog, you probably saw me say that I didn't have many issues with the upgrade. That's an understatement -- I think Snow Leopard is one of the smoothest upgrades I've ever performed with any operating system. You've probably already read the reports of fellow bloggers David Winograd and Mel Martin, which noted many similar findings.

During a four hour period after the delivery of my 5-install Family Pack by FedEx, I upgraded three Macs. The experience with each of them was slightly different, which is something you'd expect since all three are completely different models, but in each case the end result was essentially the same. All had about 10 - 15 GB more hard drive space than when I began, all were more "snappy" in terms of response, and the display looked crisper.

After surprising the FedEx delivery person with my HD video camera (yes, there's going to be an unboxing video coming later this weekend), I ripped open the box, pulled out the Snow Leopard box, pulled off the plastic, and then got the disk ready to go. I had done a final Time Machine backup of my MacBook Air just to make sure I had captured the last changes made on documents, so I plugged in the MBA's external SuperDrive and popped in the disk. I'm not exactly sure what I did after starting up the installer, but on the MacBook Air, I was asked to reboot the machine and then the installation began.

Back in June, TUAW reported on iPhoto2Twitter, an iPhoto plugin that provides an easy way to send photos from your iPhoto library to Twitter via TwitPic. Now the developer, Blue Crowbar Software, is back with an update that adds support for sending photos and movies from your iPhone or digital camera to Mobypicture.com.
Mobypicture is an online service that lets you upload a photo or movie once, then distribute the media to a number of different social sites and blogging tools. At this time, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, Vimeo, WordPress, LiveJournal, Tumblr, Vimeo, Jaiku, Hyves, and BrightKite are all supported.

As before, iPhoto2Twitter is available for €4.95 (approximately US$7.03) directly from the developer's website. Blue Crowbar's Aperture2Twitter has also been updated to add various social media and blogging sites through Mobypicture, and it's now available for €5.95 (about US$8.47).

Back when we looked at Radar, a photosharing site with an accompanying iPhone app, I mentioned that while Twitter had monopolized the "text exporting" function from your iPhone, there would be a slew of companies to try and grab the rest of the media you want to broadcast. Radar, I said, wanted to be the photo app. And AudioBoo, it appears, wants to be the audio app (we've yet to see a strong video contender pop up with the 3GS, though YouTube is certainly serving for now).

I've been using AudioBoo (iTunes link) for a few weeks now, and I have to say, it definitely does what it says on the box: after a short signup session and the installation of the app to your iPhone, you can record and upload (and almost more interesting, listen back to others') audio quickly and easily.

You hit record, can talk for a while (i haven't hit a limit yet, though three minutes is what I originally heard, and that tends to be about right for these little mini-podcasts), then hit stop and upload, add a picture, title, and tags, and a few minutes later, your audio is right there on the web for everyone to hear. I've used it on my EDGE phone and my friend's 3G, and I have to say the experience is better on the 3G -- the upload speeds are much better (I generally have to wait on my iPhone until I get on Wi-Fi to upload the audio), and to my ears, the audio sounds better. Here's a recording I made at a Cubs game on my 1G with a few friends, and a recording my friend made on his 3G at a restaurant. Edge works, obviously, but the 3G seems to work better.

Have you ever wondered what goes on "behind the curtain" at TUAW? Podcaster extraordinaire Chuck Joiner is the man behind the popular Mac-related podcasts MacVoices, MacNotables, and the MacJury. Chuck recently spent some time with Mike Rose, Christina Warren, David Winograd, and myself discussing the past, present, and future of The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

The episode has just gone live, and you can listen to us by clicking this link to MacVoices or by subscribing to the podcast [opens iTunes].

June 8, 2009.

Today's a day filled with incredible anticipation for Apple fans. The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference opens with a keynote by Apple Senior VP of Product Marketing Phil Schiller, who is widely expected to announce the availability of the 3rd generation of iPhone firmware and hardware, provide a release date for Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6), and hopefully throw in a few surprises in the meantime.

While TUAW has no "assets on the ground" inside the keynote (Brett Terpstra will be outside for developer interviews immediately afterward), our team is preparing for full meta-liveblogging of the event. Join us for this event beginning at about 10 AM Pacific Time / 1 PM Eastern Time / 5 PM GMT as TUAW bloggers Steve Sande, Megan Lavey, and Erica Sadun provide you with nonstop coverage of the keynote. You can also follow our event-specific Twitter feed for updates throughout the week at http://twitter.com/tuaw_wwdc.

Former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki was at SXSW Interactive this week and I had the chance to catch-up with him and talk about the announcement of My.Alltop, a customizable version of Alltop.com. Alltop is a really good way to quickly catch up on a lot of news about a specific topic. NetNewsWire is another app that's great for that, but I don't always have the time to space-bar my way through the latest news and events.

Alltop started out small, with only a few categories and niche areas. Now it's huge, and it indexes and large number of topics and sites. This is great, but can lead to information overload. With My.Alltop, you can customize a personal page with your favorite links in one place from all across Allto.. As someone who is frustrated by trying to manage RSS feeds on my iPod touch, I prefer the iPhone optimized Alltop interface for getting information quickly.

My.Alltop just launched and it doesn't look like the mobile stylesheets have been rolled out yet. But I'm sure just a matter of time. Guy also said that an iPhone application is in the works so you can add, edit or access your feeds more quickly.

Also, be sure to check out the TUAW MyAlltop page. We've started to load it with some of our favorite Mac, iPhone and general tech links and I know this is what I'll be rocking when I want to read news on the run.

Have a WordPress blog? Own an iPhone or iPod touch? Have you been using WordPress for iPhone to update your blog from the comfort of your bathroom [insert your own visual image here]?

The WordPress community has been hard at work on the next release of WordPress for iPhone, and it will contain a ton of new features including:

• Landscape mode with the extra wide keyboard
• Link creation help
• Support for editing and creating Pages
• Comment moderation
• Asynchronous publishing
• Photo resizing options

A video of WordPress for iPhone 1.2 in action with a beta of WordPress 2.7 is available with a quick click on the video window at the top of this post. For more information, visit the WordPress for iPhone page.

As with the previous versions, WordPress for iPhone 1.2 will be free. As soon as the beta test is complete and all bugs have been successfully squashed, the new version will be available via the App Store.

Erik Schwiebert is one of the lead developers on the Mac Business Unit team under the Microsoft banner. I find their position constantly interesting -- even in these enlightened days of Safari for Windows, many dyed-in-the-wool Mac users still consider Microsoft the enemy, and yet the Mac BU has always been like a kind of diplomatic envoy. We have to use things like Office and Entourage, so we cautiously let them across the border, regarding them like strange visitors from the other side of the wall.

But maybe that's just all in my mind. Recently, the Mac BU released an update for Office 2008, and lots of users, apparently, have suffered from error problems while trying to install it. So many, in fact, that Schwiebert has responded to the problems on his blog, saying that the problems are most likely because users have deleted or otherwise messed with files inside the installation, causing the installer to abort. And that strange Mac BU/Mac users fragile truce comes into play here as well -- he specifically calls out Xslimmer and Monolingual, two programs that delete often-unnecessary files in OS X, for causing the issues.

There's a workaround floating around, but Schwiebert warns it leaves the application suite in a possibly unstable and unsupportable state. Unfortunately, Schwiebert doesn't really offer any solutions (other, we guess, than to reinstall the software so that it's back to the full install, and then apply the update). And the alliance between the Mac BU and their users remains fragile -- we've got to work together, but it seems that many are unhappy about it.