Forget WWDC, the iPhone App Store and the Apple Design Awards. The one thing we want to see this summer is the new Indiana Jones movie!

We're sure some of you feel the same anticipation, so why not let your Mac in on the fun? The workers at The Iconfactory have launched their month-long tribute to Dr. Jones with Indy-themed freeware icon sets, one for each movie. So far, the Raiders of the Lost Ark set has been released, while The Temple of Doom, Last Crusade, and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull icon sets will debut later this month.

If your using CandyBar (we've written about CandyBar several times), you can make use of the Indy-themed Dock. Finally, round things of with this great desktop picture (it's also available for the iPhone!).

Let me tell you something about my mindset. When I bought an iPhone, one of my first thoughts was: "How do I hook up a bluetooth keyboard to this thing?" It's that kind of thinking that has always stood between me and the iMac. Because in this world, there are two kinds of people[1]: the iMac people and the tower people.

iMac people love the all-in-one package that their system brings. It's hard to look at an iMac and not think that it's smiling at you. The iMac delivers the entire computing experience in a single friendly unit. Customization? They do it at the store. Buyers decide what kind of memory and hard drive space they want. And then they buy it. And they're done.

Tower people don't think that way. Memory, drives, peripherals -- these are all things that ebb and flow throughout the lifetime of the unit. More USB ports? Throw in a card. Widescreen monitors just went on sale? Buy one and eBay the current screen.

Coming from an tower perspective, the iMac has always puzzled me. It makes people happy without ever needing to be disassembled and reassembled. Sure, there are hobbyists who do exactly that but they are usually tower people playing with iMac-shaped toys. Most iMac users I know are perfectly happy to use their Apple system for the entire lifetime of that unit -- often a very long lifetime indeed -- and never crack it open and mod it. Ever.

Astonishing.

So here I am raising a glass to the iMac on its birthday and to all the iMac users whose lives have been enriched by this little puzzling unit. May your systems be reliable and long-lived. And may you continue to enjoy your all-in-one system. Cheers!

[1] That is, other than the people who divide people into two kinds of people and the people who don't.

Not only does being shown in an iPod commercial lead to fame and fortune for many artists, but Canadian singer Leslie Feist apparently got something else out of the deal: she got American citizenship. We have no idea how that works, but she says as much in this clip of her appearing on Stephen Colbert's show. When he mentions that she's from the Great White North, she says that she's actually a dual citizen now. Colbert asks if Steve Jobs really stepped up to make her an American and she says yes, that's pretty much how it worked: "They offered me citizenship, that was part of it."

Is she joking? Or has Jobsy actually got the ear of the government now and is giving out citizenships as part of Apple contracts? Either way, we know this: Leslie Feist rocks. We'll have her as a citizen any day, via a backroom Apple deal or otherwise.

What do the authors of Grand Theft Auto IV think about Apple users? Tossers. (Warning: definition link NSFW). They've embedded a brilliant Apple parody into one of the Internet cafe computers in the game.

Among other points, they take down Apple (called "Fruit") for being overpriced minimalism. A white shiny unit, superficially similar to the "i" sits next to a near-cinema display and readers are encouraged to "Think Fruit" and live in the Fruit Cocoon.

And if that's not enough, the site advertises a new banana-shaped iFruit phone. Its sales points made me laugh out loud: No buttons, no reception, no storage capacity, all Ego!

Kudos to GTAIV and thanks to Dylan Unutmaz for sending in the links.

You may remember Steve Ballmer (CEO of some other company) criticizing the iPod and iPhone on several occasions. Something that he definitely cannot criticize is the Mac, mostly because he was seen using one for with one at the podium while he gave a presentation. MacLife pointed us to this Flickr picture showing what really powers the other Steve's presentation. What's there? You guessed it, a MacBook Pro. We imagine that it is running Windows via BootCamp, proving once again that the best Windows machine money can buy is a Mac.

I guess Microsoft is staring to "Think Different," eh?

Update: As noted by several Flickr commenters, Ballmer didn't actually use the Mac to present; all that was displayed was his title slide, most likely driven by backstage gear, and presumably the MacBook Pro was left at the podium by the conference organizers or a previous presenter. Still a pleasant thought to imagine him slaving away over his PowerPoint (or Keynote!) presentation on the MBP, but it doesn't look like that's how it went.

Our Boston-based buddy, Chad Barraford, sent us in some pics of Apple's new Boylston Street store. Located across the street from The Prudential Center in Boston's upscale Back Bay, this will be the ninth store located in Massachusetts. Apple didn't just create a bland façade to cover the construction, they made it look like Fenway Park's "Green Monster." Now that this is starting to sound like a real estate sales pitch, let's show you some pictures.


Thanks, Chad!

We've gotten a few tips over the last 24 hours suggesting that 'Mac' -- actor Justin Long, of the I'm a Mac, I'm a PC ad campaign -- made a shopping trip to a Cupertino-area Best Buy and surprisingly, in a bit of a CLM, pooh-poohed the available Apple hardware:

[Best Buy's John] Beck said that he showed Long a variety of machines, however he was not really interested in the products that Apple had. "He said that he's got a few of them at home, but doesn't really use them much. He said that you can't really get any good games for them and that he doesn't like the mouse since it only has one button. He also said that his started crashing a lot ever since he got the latest updates for iTunes."

Leaving aside the question of whether a Hollywood actor is clever enough to grok the Mighty Mouse's right-click capability or using Boot Camp for gaming, it just so happens that all the instances of this story lead back to this Joking Around blog post. Joking Around, which provides amusing fake news ("Making up the news -- because real news is boring!"), is not an actual news source. TUAW giggled at the "Closet PC User" story (although the one about Apple patenting the click is funnier) but in truth we have no idea what platform Mr. Long computes on. It's his business whether he is in fact a PC user or not -- and we think it best to let such personal secrets remain behind closed doors.

[Actually, we're pretty sure he uses a Mac -- but it's still his business]

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

Some things sound really cool -- until you actually have to step up and do them in real time. TUAW reader Gerald Buckley's story about traveling with his iPhone strikes me as belonging to this class.

When he approached the American Airlines counter to use his iPhone as a boarding pass, the coolness quotient for his entire trip got bumped up several notches. It seems that he navigated over to AA.com using Mobile Safari, signed in and displayed a PDF of his boarding pass on-screen. The American Airlines counter agent in San Antonio "humored" him and scanned the barcode as displayed on his iPhone. The scan worked, and Buckley proceeded with his travels (much to the envy and amazement of his fellow passengers, no doubt).

Here's the thing though. If it were me, this would have totally gone another way. First, while waiting on line, I would have had bad WiFi. It would have taken me about 20 minutes to type in my information and the people behind me on line would have been coughing *significantly* to get me to keep moving along with the line as I tried to type, move all my luggage and possibly keep three extremely rambunctious children in order. Finally, I would get to the gate agent and I would have gotten the snarky impatient version -- somehow I always do. Assuming that I could even get all the typing and navigation done, I know in my heart that the response would have been "you need a printed boarding pass, ma'am."

Of course, this is entirely academic because I have not been granted a boarding pass for the last 5 or 6 years due entirely, I'm sure, to my last name. It's always "You must check in at the counter" -- which is way easier than even a boarding pass because I just swipe my credit card.

All that having been said, TUAW congratulates Mr. Buckley's ingenuity and offers the example of his experience to speed you your travels in a uniquely geek fashion.

If you've got the travel bug (with or without your iPhone), be sure to visit our sister site Gadling for all things flight-related.

Thanks to the seemingly dubious prospect of a Mac OS X-ready PC from Psystar, running Mac OS X on gear not made by Apple has gotten the Macweb all aflutter this week. Rob Griffiths of Macworld and MacOSXHints, not content with Apple's lineup of Macs, or waiting for some random company to make a clone, has created his very own Frankenmac (hence my lame Photoshop attempt to the right).

Rob documents the reasons why someone might want to run OS X on non-Apple hardware, and lists some potential pitfalls (like updates not working correctly, or hardware/software incompatibilities). Please note that Rob's article isn't a How-To on building a Hackintosh, but rather a look at why some folks find the idea so appealing, and what the drawbacks are.

This Mahalo Daily-wannabe Lindsay Hamel's video entry made me laugh even though it seemed very similar to this old Emily Posts post about dating Apple Developers. "This is my boyfriend Kyle. He's an Apple Coder. Notice how he's facing his code and not facing me." If you're dating an Apple geek, get used to the way his back looks. The ring of truth.

As for those tees? I mostly give away my Xcode t-shirts to my kids and yes they make excellent sleepware.

[Via Mactropolis]

Today, David Hambling over at Wired posted about surviving a Zombie Apocalypse through best practices. What's missing from this article, however, is the IT spin on things. As you know, zombies are primarily Wintel users, formed from the primordial ooze of Enterprise computing and minimal IT support as much as from Voudou curses and spiritual possession.

Mac users are naturally resistant to Zombie attacks despite lower per capita conventional firearm ownership due to their reliable computing environment. Fewer trips to IT support means limited exposure to a transformed city-scape where maddened zombie hordes roam for victims. Plus, Apple users can listen to their own portable lifestyle soundtrack on their iPods while watching the walking dead rampage through the streets. Safety + entertainment = win, win.

Unfortunately, in the case of Vampire rather than Zombie attacks the case is reversed. By a 20% margin, Wintel users have better access to holy water and crosses. And I'm pretty sure that wooden iPod cases won't work well as stake-through-the-heart replacements and the iRosary was never brought to market as an actual product. Should Apple decide, however, to enter the undead-thwarting arena, you can be sure their devices will be sleek, well designed and offer that Jonathan Ives je ne sais quoi.

Rubicon Consulting recently published a survey (PDF) from a selected group of 460 iPhone owners. Here is a summary of the results:

• 80% of iPhone owners said they were "satisfied" with the device
• 72% of users said they use the iPhone at least once a day for e-mail
• 55% of those surveyed said that the iPhone has increased their mobile browsing
• Almost half of the owners changed their carrier
  
• 40% of those that switched, switched from a smartphone device
  
• 1/3 of iPhone owners carry 2 phones
• 13% of iPhone owners surveyed have unlocked iPhones
• 1 out of 10 users reported "hand pain" after use
• 1 out of 5 iPhones were purchased as a gift

Only 20% of the users surveyed said that they had both an iPod and Mac; while only 5% said they had had a Mac and no iPod. Half of iPhone owners are under 30 years of age and students took up 16% of iPhone usage. While not surprising, the most desired new feature is applications and Exchange support. iPhone owners are of course paying more for their monthly phone bill -- the average phone bill before iPhone purchase was around $78/mo. and after purchase was around $97/mo.

You can read the full survey by downloading the published survey from Rubicon Consulting.

[via MacRumors]

The year is 1976, two high school students young guys (Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs) are in their garage working on their latest invention: the Apple I. Almost 200 of these machines were built before the fruity little company known as Apple Computer became a reality.

Fast forward to April 1, 2008, Apple has now surpassed 32 years of making wonderful products that capture the imagination of everyone. Their products have almost a "magical" feel to them. iPods, iMacs, Mac OS X; Apple certainly has come a long way since 1976.

Here's to wishing Apple a happy 32nd Birthday ... we certainly can't wait to see what the next 32 years bring.

Do you have a story about Apple's early days? Be sure to tell yours in the comments.

This weekend marked a very special date as Mac OS X turned 7 years old. Mac OS X was launched on March 21, 2001. Throughout the years, Mac OS X has definitely seen its share of changes. In these 7 years, OS X has been through 6 versions (7 if you include the first public beta version). Below is a list of the version names, numbers and launch dates of each Mac OS X release:

• Mac OS X Public Beta (September 13, 2000)
  
• Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah (March 21, 2001)
• Mac OS X 10.1 Puma (September 25, 2001)
• Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar (August 23, 2002)
• Mac OS X 10.3 Panther (October 24, 2003)
• Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger (April 29, 2005)
• Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (October 26, 2007)

You can read the initial launch press release on the Apple PR website. Be sure to check out our collection of Mac OS X screenshots. What was your first version of Mac OS X?



[images courtesy of Wikipedia]

Apple has some clever new Get a Mac sidebar ads running on various sites around the net, including ZDNet. In them, PC repeatedly hits an emergency reset lever (attempting to clear negative banners about Vista) to less than good effect. The humorless sort are quick to point out that the quotes PC resets don't come from actual reviews, but instead from op-eds and the like. Personally, this seems like a distinction without difference. The point is that Vista has not been that well-received in the tech world and Apple is right on target about that in this series of ads. (As to various problems with Leopard, well, that's for a another time).

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

[via Gizmodo]