While iMovie for iOS is a technological tour-de-force that somehow crams a complete video editor into the limited real estate of an iOS app, it does have its Achilles Heel -- a less-than-stellar ability to work with audio. Macworld author, TidBits Editor, and all-around nice guy Jeff Carlson, who also just happens to have written The iMovie '11 Project Book for Peachpit Press, has written a nice roundup of audio workarounds to help you with iMovie for iOS.

While I won't spoil the three well-written tips by repeating them here, I will give you an idea of Jeff's hints for getting the most out of audio in iMovie. The first addresses the fact that navigating the song list in iMovie's Audio pane is incredibly tedious. To fix this, Carlson suggests creating Smart Playlists in iTunes that ignore those songs with DRM that can't be used in iMovie videos.

Carlson also notes that iMovie for iOS has a limited number of sound effects. This can be remedied by finding audio files on your Mac that you wish to use in your movie (from iMovie sound effects or GarageBand), opening them in QuickTime Player, exporting them to your hard drive, and then adding the file to your iTunes library before syncing to your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.

Jeff's final tip deals with the iMovie for iOS problem of not being able to use a song track shorter than 60 seconds in length as a background song. If you've needed a workaround for this, check out the post on Macworld or consider buying his book.

Audio workarounds in iMovie for iOS originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Audio workarounds in iMovie for iOS originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The goose is cooked, the cookies crumbled, the wrapping paper thrown away and the relatives released to their neutral corners. Finally, you can get down to the post-holiday fun of setting up your new iPad, or transferring your data from your old PC to your new Mac! Unfortunately, the end of a long day of cooking, eating, drinking and merry-making might render your personal IT skills a bit less than optimal. Whatever shall we do?

We're here to help. Got a pressing Mac, iPhone, iPod or iPad setup question? Wondering how best to arrange your iTunes store accounts, chat with Siri or configure iCloud? Leave a comment here, hit us up on our Ask TUAW Twitter account, or swing by our Facebook or G+ pages. We may not be able to answer all the questions, but we'll help as much as we can.

TUAW Help Line: holiday gift questions & answers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 25 Dec 2011 20:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAW Help Line: holiday gift questions & answers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 25 Dec 2011 20:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There's an easy way in OS X 10.7 Lion to convert video or audio from one format to another, using a fixed suite of conversion settings. One approach uses Automator and can be launched from the Finder. The other uses the Terminal application and the afconvert (for audio) or avconvert (for video) command-line utilities. Behind the scenes, though, Automator is simply serving as a convenient front-end for the CLI tools. (You can also use the free Hoot app from the Mac App Store to do the same audio conversions.)

The Automator method is the easiest to start with. Simply select the video or audio file you want to convert in the Finder. Under the Finder menu, choose the Services submenu, then "Encode Selected Video Files" or "Encode Selected Audio Files." You can also get to the Services submenu via the Finder's contextual menus; right-click the target file (or control-click, or on a trackpad, two-finger click) and the Services choices will be at the bottom of the pop-up menu.

Finder menu / Services submenu

Contextual pop-up menu

Either approach will launch a dialog box where you can select your media conversion settings and the target file's destination. You can process one file at a time or, if you select multiple files, they'll be tackled in a batch conversion. The settings are slightly different for audio and video files, as appropriate to their media types -- you can experiment with the different settings to find the format that works for you.

Video encoding settings

Audio encoding settings

For those of you more comfortable with the command line, you can use afconvert to encode an audio file from one format to another or avconvert to do the same with video. Type "afconvert -h" in Terminal to get a list of all the options you can use in the audio conversion.

The avconvert tool is new in OS X Lion. Besides transcoding, it also lets you extract the audio or video track from a clip, change frame rates, add closed captioning and more.

You read more about Automator video encoding and audio encoding at the Mac OS X Automation website. Additional information on the CLI commands can be found in Apple's Mac OS X Developer Library.

Mac 101: Encode media from Automator or the command line in Lion originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Mac 101: Encode media from Automator or the command line in Lion originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whether it's a gift for yourself, a friend, or a loved one, buying your first iPad can be cause for some trepidation. After all, there are a number of combinations of three variables -- network type, carrier, and storage on the device -- that add up to puzzlement for some folks. In this Holiday Gift Guide, I'll give you some advice on how to pick the best iPad model for the lucky recipient on your gift list.

The big questions are whether or not you need 3G wireless capabilities, whether or not your 3G iPad should run on a GSM (AT&T in US) or CDMA (Verizon in US) network, how much storage to get, and whether or not to consider purchasing a used iPad.

Wi-Fi Only versus Wi-Fi + 3G

To really make the best use of your iPad, you're going to need an Internet connection. With the iPad, you have two choices: Wi-Fi (wireless network connectivity) models and Wi-Fi + 3G (adding 3G mobile data connectivity) models. If you ever need Internet connectivity away from Wi-Fi hotspots, buy the Wi-Fi + 3G version of the iPad. You can't add the functionality to the iPad later. In the US, the Wi-Fi + 3G models are about $130 more expensive than their Wi-Fi only counterparts.

Some other things to think about -- will you be using your iPad in places where there are no Wi-Fi hotspots? If so, the addition of 3G connectivity is a must. You can also use a tethering solution (Personal Hotspot) or a 3G router like the Sierra Wireless Overdrive or Novatel MiFi to connect an iPad to the Internet, so if you already have an iPhone that is capable of running Personal Hotspot or a 3G/4G router, then maybe a Wi-Fi only device will do the trick for you.

Remember that 3G connectivity isn't free, so you will have to purchase a data plan. Be sure to check with your carrier (AT&T or Verizon in the US) on the various plans available, and remember that most iPad data plans are month-to-month and can be turned off during those months you don't need the service.

One other thing to consider -- if you have a need to run apps that are location aware, note that the Wi-Fi + 3G iPads contain full Assisted GPS (A-GPS), while the Wi-Fi versions can only determine their position while connected to a Wi-Fi network with a router that has been scanned by a a geolocation service.

GSM versus CDMA

If you've decided to go with a Wi-Fi iPad, then you can skip this section. With a Wi-Fi + 3G device, you'll need to determine whether you wish to go with a GSM or CDMA network. What this means in the US is AT&T (GSM) versus Verizon (CDMA). For potential iPad owners in the rest of the world, the answer is much more simple, as the GSM cellular network standard is found in most other countries.

American iPad owners might want to consider which carrier works best in the locations where they'll be using the iPad most often. For example, in most of the city where I live (Denver, Colorado), AT&T service is pretty good. However, it's atrociously bad in the downtown Denver area, and if I was going to spend a lot of time using the device there, I'd jump on a Verizon CDMA iPad.

Storage

The next big question -- how much storage capacity do you need? You have three choices at this point in time: 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB. The difference between the 16 GB and 32 GB models is only $100, while the 64 GB model is another $100 over the price of 32 GB model. But how do you figure out which model to get? Here are some questions to ask yourself:

How big is your media library? If your library is small and manageable, you may be OK with the 16 GB model. If you already own a music device like an iPod touch, perhaps you'll want to continue using it for listening to music, since iPods are much more portable than your iPad. Also consider using iTunes in the Cloud to reduce your storage requirements. This service, part of iOS 5, makes it simple to listen to your music library by streaming tunes to your device. If you like to watch a lot of video, remember that movies can be from 500 MB to 1 GB in size, so plan accordingly if you wish to carry a lot of them with you.

Do you plan on carrying a lot of photos? Digital photos are usually fairly small, but if you carry around a few thousand pictures, you can chew up storage very quickly. I use my iPad to back up photos from my digital camera when I'm on trips, so I find that the 32 GB of storage I have gets filled up rather quickly.

Are you going to use your iPad to hold a lot of documents? Some people I know use their iPads as data storage and transfer devices, taking huge amounts of documents with them on the road. If this is a situation you're familiar with, think about getting more storage.

How long do you think you'll keep your iPad? Those who think that they'll keep their iPad for a longer period of time may want to pay more for more storage so that they can "grow into" the iPad. For those of us who turn over our iPads every time a new model appears, saving $100-200 in the hopes that a cheaper and more capable version shows up within a year may be a better idea.

Used versus New

If the iPad is for yourself or a child, you might not care if it's a brand new unit or a used one. Since the iPad has now been out for almost two years, some owners like to move up to newer models and you can get a heck of a deal on used devices.

Apple's the best vendor for used iPads. They often make refurbished units available at less than the suggested retail price of new equipment, and the the iPad comes with the original factory warranty. Visit the online Apple Store to find the latest refurb iPad deals.

eBay is also a great place to look for used iPads. Be sure to check that the dealer has photos of the exact unit you're bidding on, has a return policy, and has a flawless approval rating. If you buy an iPad from someone local, think about having an Authorized Apple Service Provider check the unit over before you device to buy.

Holiday Gift Guide: Buying an iPad originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Holiday Gift Guide: Buying an iPad originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Updated to clarify that a split clip feature exists in 10.7's version of QuickTime X.

Say what you will about the QuickTime X framework and player introduced in Mac OS X 10.6 -- it's crazy speedy on multicore machines, it provides the foundation for next-generation features, it lets you drag-and-drop to combine movie clips, all that good stuff.

The fact is, for sheer Swiss Army utility it can't (yet) hold a candle to the veteran QuickTime 7 Player with the QuickTime Pro upgrade. While you can use the v7 player on Snow Leopard and Lion, getting access to the Pro features still requires a $29.99 license code.

That's a shame, because it means many Mac users are missing out on most of the wonderful tricks QuickTime Player 7 can do to save you time and aggravation. Here's one example: splitting a long & large movie into segments for easier uploading or emailing. If you're running 10.7 Lion, you have access to QuickTime X's new Split Clip command; if you're running 10.6 as in the example below, you don't. (I'll tackle the step-by-step of getting Lion's version of QT X to do this in a subsequent post.)

In QuickTime X on 10.6, we've got a visual and very fast Trim tool; it shows exactly where the video will be truncated with an easy, iMovie-esque scrubber bar, and it does indeed save wicked fast once you trim your clip. Nice and handy.

While you can trim quickly this way, you can't actually split the file into two and match up frames so you don't lose anything in the middle (which you can do on 10.7). You'd have to go back, open the original movie, and try to figure out exactly where you trimmed it -- QuickTime X for 10.6 doesn't have a way to do this gracefully.

Oh, well. Good thing there's QuickTime Player 7 (in the Utilities folder, by default, on Snow Leopard) with a Pro license key. In this case, you just open the movie and use the selector tools (below the timeline) to highlight the first half of the movie that you want to save as a separate file.

Then, before you do anything else, go to File -> Save As... and save the file with a new name (ending in 'part 1' perhaps) to avoid mucking up the source file by accident. You could save the movie self-contained (all the movie data in the file; you could copy or move it to another machine or drive and it would work) or save it as a reference movie, QuickTime's version of an alias. Reference movies track your tweaks and edits to the movie without modifying the underlying data stored in the original file; this makes them extremely fast to work with and save, but you can't move them around between computers without their 'parent' files. It depends what you intend to do with the pieces; if you just want to give the movie sections separate file names to organize a long clip, reference movies will do fine.

Now you're ready to make the split clip. Under the Edit menu, choose Trim to Selection. Boom: you've got the first chunk of my movie sitting there in the window by itself. Go to the file menu and choose Save (not Save As...) and your movie is half the clip it used to be.

Here's the magic bit: head back up to the Edit menu and choose Undo Trim to Selection. Your movie is now reverted back the way it was before, first and second half, including your selection marks. Don't Save it, though! Go to the Edit menu again and choose Cut (or Delete, if you prefer). The second half of your movie -- right down to the frame where you cropped it earlier -- is now sitting in your player window.

If you figured out that the next step is "Save As..." with a new name containing 'part 2,' well done. Now you've got two separate movie files that each contain half the original movie, exactly where you want them. Remember that you'll need to save as self-contained movies if you're planning to ship those half-size files around to other people. You can repeat the cycle as many times as you need to clip your movie into the appropriate number of smaller bits.

It's worth checking out Apple's QuickTime 7 User Guide (PDF) if you're interested in more tricks you can do with QuickTime 7 Pro. Got a favorite? Let us know and we'll write it up for all to enjoy.

Split large movie files quickly on 10.6 with QuickTime Player 7 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Split large movie files quickly on 10.6 with QuickTime Player 7 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you've ever wanted to download Amazon MP3s via Terminal or over ssh, or ever found yourself unable to use the "Amazon MP3 Downloader.app" then I have good news for you: there is another way.

The problem

Amazon's MP3 Store annoys me to no end. I love the deals that they occasionally offer, but in order to download the files, you have to download the Amazon MP3 Downloader. Inside that dmg file is an installer application that doesn't use the normal .pkg format.

The special installer failed to install the application on my Mac. I managed to install it manually (as well as the plugin that needs to be installed to "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/"), but then the application kept crashing after each song.

So, to recap, Amazon doesn't use the standard package installer, and their installer failed to work; and they don't use normal downloads, and their non-standard downloader failed to work. This is why you should stick to standards -- they've been better tested for a lot longer than your "roll your own" solution. Stop reinventing the wheel.

The ".amz" file that you download from Amazon is an XML file which includes a download URL, but you can't access that URL to download the music directly. I was all ready to start sniffing TCP headers and try to figure out what special headers the Amazon MP3 Downloader.app uses, when the same thought occurred to me: "Don't reinvent the wheel."

The solution

I was able to find the solution on Google code, specifically at http://code.google.com/p/clamz/ which is described as "is a little command-line program to download MP3 files from Amazon.com's music store."

Side note: I needed to install 'libgcrypt' in order to get clamz to build, which I did using Homebrew simply by typing brew install libgcrypt (assuming you already have brew and Xcode installed). The clamz page also mentions libcurl and libexpat, but I those were already installed on my Mac.

Once I had the necessary libraries installed, installation of clamz was as simple as the instructions on its homepage:

 tar xfvz clamz-0.5.tar.gz  cd clamz-0.5  ./configure  make  sudo make install  

Then I just had to get a "fresh" .amz file from Amazon. To do that, I went to the Amazon Cloud Player, clicked the checkbox at the top to select all my music (see #1 below) and then clicked "Download" (see #2 below):

Note that if you have more songs than will fit on one page, you may have to do this repeatedly for each "page". I only have 230 songs in my Amazon Cloud Player.

That downloaded new ".amz" file on my computer called "Amazon-MP3-1321140421.amz" (yours will be named something similar but different). Then I ran this command simple command:

 clamz --output-dir=~/Music/ ~/Downloads/Amazon-MP3-1321140421.amz 

and watched with sheer delight as clamz downloaded all of my Amazon music files. I accidentally closed my MacBook Air before it was finished, but was able to resume the download simply by adding the --resume flag:

 clamz --resume --output-dir=~/Music/ ~/Downloads/Amazon-MP3-1321140421.amz 

When it finishes, you can delete the .amz file, as the links it contains will expire anyway. You can always download another one later.

Thanks, Internet

This simply would not have been possible without the help of the open source community, both the developer behind clamz (Benjamin Moody) and the awesome folks behind Homebrew.

After I finished using clamz I also found pymazon, but I'm not sure if that works on Mac.

Since I criticized Amazon's non-standard downloader, someone might say "Well, iTunes is a non-standard downloader, too!" That's a valid point. If I had been trying to download from iTunes and it failed to work, I would not have been so fortunate to find an open source solution.

Download Amazon MP3s in Terminal with clamz originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 13 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Download Amazon MP3s in Terminal with clamz originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 13 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dashboard has several fantastic features, including the ability to turn any web clipping into a widget. Macworld readers decided to use this feature to grab the functioning Mickey Mouse clock from the iPod nano home page and use it on your desktop. Here's how to recreate it:

• Visit the iPod nano's home page in Safari. Right (or control) click on an empty part of the page and select "open in dashboard."
• Center the box that appears on the Mickey Mouse clock, or any other section of the page you wish to save. Hit the "add" button that's appeared at the top of Safari. Adjust the handles that appear to get the size you want.

There's more to it, and we encourage to read the rest at Macworld. How does this work? Macworld explains it's because Apple doesn't use Flash on its site. The clock is created from HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images.

Mac 101: Use web clippings to put a Mickey Mouse clock on your Mac originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Mac 101: Use web clippings to put a Mickey Mouse clock on your Mac originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As I mentioned on my earlier post, Steve Sande and I have been hard at work collaborating on "Talking to Siri," an ebook that will soon hit the Kindle store. One of the topics we're exploring is how to push Siri beyond its advertised limits.

Take blogging, for example. Did you know that you could create blog posts entirely by voice? I'm not talking about basic dictation either.

That's because Siri supports SMS messaging, and a little known feature of Google Blogger allows you to create blog posts directly from SMS text messages.

[You can also use SMS to post to Tumblr and Posterous, although it's a bit more finicky. Services like ping.fm or HelloTXT may help if you plan to update several social networks right from Siri. -Ed.]

Interested in giving it a spin? Send REGISTER to 256447. Blogger replies to your registration text by texting you a URL for your new blog and an optional claim code. This code can be used to associate your new access with an existing blog. It just as easy, however, to work with the automatically generated blog that is sent to you.

To create a new post, just reply to the 256447 conversation. Dictate your new blog post to Siri and send it. Once you do, the text contents are instantly posted to the blog. If you want to start posts from scratch, just give that SMS number a memorable contact name in your address book (I used 'Geronimo Blogger' in the screenshot).

You can visit the mobile blog I created this way over at Blogger and see the two posts I created using Siri.

If you're on a limited SMS diet, posting by text message may prove too rich for your blood. There's still a Siri-capable workaround for that, but you must use an existing blogger account to create a Mail-to-Blogger address. You'll find a complete set of instructions at the Blogger help article on this subject. That write-up shows you how to use your account settings to establish your blogging email address, which consists of your user name and a secret word. You can then use Siri to send an email to that address whenever you want to post-by-voice.

If you'd prefer not to use Blogger, there are plenty of other services that work with post-via-email. Tumblr, Posterous and Wordpress.com all support creating a custom address that you can use to post directly. Simply add the email to your address book with a distinctive yet pronounceable contact name ("Erica Tumblr" will work, but you might want to include a phonetic last name to help Siri suss out that it's pronounced 'tumbler'), then tell Siri "Send an email to Erica Tumblr." You can dictate your post and share it with the world.

Blogging with your voice: Siri, Blogger, and post-by-SMS originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Blogging with your voice: Siri, Blogger, and post-by-SMS originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to iPhone 101

Almost immediately after the release of the iPhone 4S, TUAW started receiving emails from readers who noticed that even when they had a passcode set on the lock screen, someone could pick up their device and issue commands to Siri. This means that unauthorized persons can easily pick up the iPhone 4S, press and hold the Home button and converse with Siri. Fortunately, there's a way to disable Siri while using a lock screen passcode.

The Sophos Naked Security blog noted that those unauthorized users can do everything from writing an email or sending a text message to maliciously changing calendar appointments. Blogger Graham Cluely notes that it's easy to disable Siri while there's a passcode in effect, and wonders why Apple didn't set the iPhone 4S up that way by default.

To make sure Siri is deaf to commands when there's a passcode on the iPhone 4S, enter Settings > General > Passcode Lock, and slide the Siri option to Off. Now, when your friends try to make a prank call to your girlfriend using your iPhone 4S, they'll find that Siri is unwilling to be a participant in the prank.

iPhone 101: Disable Siri with iPhone passcode to prevent unauthorized use originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iPhone 101: Disable Siri with iPhone passcode to prevent unauthorized use originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dear Aunt TUAW,

What the heck is going on with eyeTV why after 3-4 years of promises do they still not support dual tuners, or channel sorting? i've tried to reach out to elgato in various different digital ways, but to no avail, does TUAW have any contacts they could touch on to figure this out?

Alternatively, is there any mac software that will do what EyeTV does, and give me support for my dual Terratec H7 Tuners?

Your loving nephew,

Ole

Dear Ole,

Auntie contacted Nick Freeman over at Elgato, to see if he could lend a hand with your question. He looked into this and here's what he had to say.

He writes, "We're sorry to hear that your two TerraTec H7 devices aren't working simultaneously with EyeTV, on one Mac.

Let me tell you a bit more about how EyeTV can (and can't) work with multiple devices.

EyeTV is able to work with many TV tuners, from a wide variety of manufacturers.

We've been able to get most of those devices to work well when used with EyeTV alone, and even in some combinations. For example, EyeTV software works fine when using two Elgato satellite products on the same Mac, at the same time.

We're constantly trying to improve EyeTV, and while we'll try to support more products in the future, we may not be able to resolve this issue with two TerraTec H7 units. We apologize that we're not able to offer the extra feature you desire."

Auntie hopes that, at least, gives you some insight as to what is going on.

Hugs,

Auntie T.

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me dual tune originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me dual tune originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With a new iPhone or two just around the corner, TUAW has been getting the usual flood of "how can I check to see if I'm eligible for an upgrade" emails. At least for those of us in the US on either the AT&T or Verizon networks, that's a fairly easy proposition. Here's how to see if you'll be eligible for an iPhone upgrade.

AT&T

For AT&T users, checking eligibility is drop-dead easy. Open the Phone app on your iPhone, tap in the magic code *639#, and tap the Call button. A message appears telling you that "a message will be sent to your phone." Within seconds, a text message arrives with the details of your eligibility (or lack thereof):

In my case, AT&T is offering me an upgrade for $18 and a pair of handcuffs tying me to AT&T for another two years. I bought my iPhone 4 on the first day of availability, and spend a few bucks on my data plan, including a Personal Hotspot tethering plan. Although none of us at TUAW know how AT&T decides who gets an "early upgrade," it seems that the more you spend, the more they like you. Imagine that...

Verizon

Verizon users need to log onto the Verizon website and go to the My Verizon tab. For each phone, you'll see whether or not you're eligible for an upgrade, and the date that the particular device is eligible.

Many thanks to my colleague Kelly Hodgkins for grabbing the Verizon screenshot for me.

Now that you can tell whether or not you're eligible, you might want to start thinking about how to get rid of that "slightly used" iPhone 4 that is currently in your hand. Just a reminder that Gazelle.com and other resale sites are ready and willing to purchase your iPhone 4. Gazelle's current bounty for a 32 GB iPhone 4 in good condition is $169, while a mint condition model bumps your take up to $250.

How to check if you're eligible for an iPhone upgrade originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

How to check if you're eligible for an iPhone upgrade originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft Word does not support Lion's "Versions" feature yet, but there's no reason to panic. There are a few options that you can use to cobble together a work- around until the Mac BU team updates the Office suite.

Also worth mentioning: although I am focusing on Microsoft Word, the same technique can be used in just about any word processing or text editing application.

"Does the app provide any auto-save settings?"

The first thing to check is whether the application that you are using offers any auto-save or auto-recover options, even if it doesn't support Versions specifically. Microsoft Word offers two auto-save options.

To find them, launch Word, then go to Preferences -> Save and check the options shown below:

The middle underlined option is the most important: it says to save auto-recover information every minute. I think the default is every 10 minutes, but a lot can change in 10 minutes.

The top checkbox is optional, but creating a backup means that you have another way to recover if something goes wrong. Options never hurt. These backups are stored in the same directory as the original, and the filenames end in "~" which is a long-standing convention for backup file names.

The third is also optional, but personally I prefer the older .doc format simply because it's more compatible with other non-Microsoft applications. The XML-based .docx format also got a bad rap previously for compatibility issues with Dropbox, although if you're running the current version of the cloud storage utility you shouldn't have any problems.

(That said, .docx is the better format, not to mention the more modern format. I think of the ".doc or .docx?" choice sort of like choosing between .mp3 or .m4a: the newer formats have technical advantages, but not as many applications support them. The difference, of course, is that it's usually pretty simple to convert between .doc and .docx.)

"Where does the app store files?"

Some applications automatically store files in a certain folder structure, and you can't move them (at least not without getting into creating links, which may or may not work well). Text editors and word processors, however, generally let you choose where to store files you create; Office also has settings for default folders for saving and auto-recovery under Preferences -> File Locations:

Note that setting the default for "Documents" does not mean that you can't change it for individual files later, it just tells Microsoft Office where to start when opening or saving new files.

You can also change the location of the AutoRecover files. I put mine into ~/Dropbox/Backups/Microsoft Office/ because if the computer I'm on dies completely, I can access the data from any other Dropbox-connected account. Is this an unlikely scenario/edge case? Absolutely. Does it hurt to set it anyway? Nope.

"But my application doesn't have those settings!"

Check out Default Folder X which, as the name implies, can set the default folder for just about any application (plus other things).

Dropbox

No doubt you noticed that I suggested using Dropbox to save the files. That's not just because they are available online or on any iOS device. Dropbox also keeps every revision for the past 30 days. That means that every time you hit "Save," a separate version is saved on Dropbox.

Browsing Dropbox revisions isn't as visually slick as using Versions on Lion. To view them, select the file in Finder, and then use the Dropbox icon on your Finder toolbar, or Control-click (right-click, or two-finger click) on the file and use the Dropbox contextual menu.

That will launch the Dropbox website and show you a listing of all the versions, and give you a chance to download them (some file formats can even be previewed online). While Dropbox only saves 30 days' worth of revisions, Dropbox Pro users also have the option to add the Pack-Rat feature which will keep revisions indefinitely.

With every save, you are creating an off-site backup of your latest work, so even if you only use one computer, Dropbox is the place to save your most important and most often changed files.

"But what if I forget to press save? My app doesn't have any sort of auto-save functionality!"

Don't fret if your app doesn't have auto-save; you can add it to any application very simply by using Keyboard Maestro. It's as simple as creating a macro which says "If I am using {insert application name here}, and there is a 'Save' button, press it every X seconds or minutes." I've created just such a rule for Microsoft Word here:

This rule will only run when Microsoft Word is active and there is a menu option for "Save" (which will be disabled if you don't have any files open). If it does find the Save menu item, it will select it. (You could also tell it to press "⌘ + S" but I prefer selecting menu items to keyboard shortcuts.)

With this rule you never have to worry about spending an hour on a Word document only to lose it all when the app crashed and you realized that you had forgotten to save it. If the file isn't saved when the Keyboard Maestro macro runs, it will prompt you to name the file.

(There are other applications like Keyboard Maestro which support the same kind of features, but Keyboard Maestro is the one that I know and use. If you would recommend others, let us know in the comments.)

Versions is great, but there's no need to wait for your app to support it

Versions is a great addition to OS X, and I love not having to remember to save, but only a handful of applications support it at the present time. If you want to (or are required to) use another application, take a few minutes to check out your auto-save options. There are few things more frustrating than losing unsaved work, but the good news is that there are fewer and fewer reasons for that to ever happen.

Emulate Lion's Versions in Microsoft Word originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Emulate Lion's Versions in Microsoft Word originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mac 101: Creating a recovery disk using Recovery Disk Assistant originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Mac 101: Creating a recovery disk using Recovery Disk Assistant originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Instagram (free) is a lot of fun, although it's often criticized as being the "auto-tune for photography." Google+ is the new social networking flavor of the week, so it's natural that the two services should get together. Wired's Gadget Lab has cooked up a recipe for more Instagram enjoyment by hacking a method of joining the two in unholy matrimony, as well as providing other fun hints.

Before I divulge their other hints, let's get to the meat of the matter for those of you who are among the Google+ cognoscenti: getting your Instagrams to Google's Picasa photo sharing site so they can be shared on Google+. Yeah, hopefully this is added to Instagram in the near future. For the present, this is how you do it, folks.

To have all of your future Instagram photos sent immediately to Google+, blogger Charlie Sorrel has you set up Instadrop, which automagically connects your Instagram and Dropbox accounts. Send a photo out on Instagram, and it shows up in a Dropbox folder named Instagram Photos. Next, pick up a copy of the free Picasa app for Mac. From the File menu, select "Add Folder to Picasa" and point it at your new Instagram Photos folder on Dropbox.

The next step is to have Picasa watch that folder all the time. There's one fly in the ointment here -- this means that if you want true real-time updating of Picasa / Google+, your Mac has to be up and running continuously. Go to Tools > Folder Manager in Picasa, select the Instagram Photos folder, and then tell Picasa to "Scan Always." Finally, find the folder in the sidebar of Picasa, click on it, and then select "Enable Sync" from the Share drop-down in the main menu.

That's it. Send a photo to Instagram, and through this complex chain of events the image eventually makes it to Google+, where it is re-shared and commented on by thousands of your friends and complete strangers.

Sorrel has some other great tips in the post, including using your "real" camera to take photos, transferring them to an iPad using the Apple Camera Connection Kit, and then zapping them to Instagram. He also recommends the $1.99 Instaplus app to have much more control over the camera and filters.

Sharing Instagram photos on Google+ automatically originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Sharing Instagram photos on Google+ automatically originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The USB stick that comes with the MacBook Air is the best way -- and in many situations, the only way -- to restore/reinstall your MacBook Air if something goes wrong. If you have the US$100 external USB SuperDrive, then you can try to use a DVD, but I found that my MacBook Air wouldn't even boot from my original Snow Leopard DVD. (I believe this is because the DVD's build of Snow Leopard is a lower version number than the Air originally shipped with, but I am not sure.)

Since my MacBook Air first arrived I have been afraid of losing the USB recovery drive. According to someone on the Apple Discussion Forums, Apple may be willing to provide you with a new one, free of charge, if you lose yours, but what I really wanted was a backup. (I have done the same thing with my Snow Leopard DVD when I bought it, just in case it was lost or damaged.) In this case, I wanted to duplicate it onto another USB drive.

I tried 'cloning' the Reinstall Drive using SuperDuper!, which completed without error, but after it was done, my MacBook Air would not boot with the new USB drive.

Apple created the drive so that when it is mounted by OS X, it appears as a DVD, not a USB drive. This means that it was not available for me to use as a "Restore" source in Disk Utility. I could not find any way to make a copy of the disk image from Disk Utility. (If one exists, I'd be happy to hear about it.)

That's when my GeekInstincts kicked in.

If Apple wanted me to treat it as a DVD drive, that's exactly what I would do. In the past I have backed up my OS X DVDs using the Terminal, and I wondered if the same thing would work here. (Spoiler alert! It did.)

Duplicating a CD or DVD the Unix way

Rather than using a GUI program such as Roxio Toast or Burn, we're going to use the Terminal. Why? Because unlike those two programs, the Unix way is free, simple, and "just works." Plus, you end up with a disk image, which you should be able to use to burn an actual DVD on just about any computer.

The steps are fairly simple:

1. Create an .iso file of the official Reinstall Drive
2. Mount the .iso file in Disk Utility
3. Mount a generic USB drive
4. Use the "restore" function in Disk Utility to copy the .iso file to the generic USB device.
5. Save the .iso file in case you lose the Reinstall Drive and your generic backup.

Note: you can do this same process with any CD/DVD and any Mac. In the past I have done it with Microsoft Office, iWork, and others. This article is addressing the MacBook Air specifically, but the same steps would work equally well for other media.

The Disclaimer

We are going to be using Terminal.app (found in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder in the Finder) to run a few commands. If you are not careful in the Terminal, you can do some serious damage. Then again, the same thing is true about a car. So, look both ways, stop if you aren't sure about something, and (whenever possible) copy & paste commands rather than typing them manually, to avoid typos.

The command we will be using is /bin/dd, which I suggest you think of as "Data Duplication." Wikipedia says that it probably originally meant "Data Description," and it is often jokingly referred to as "data destroyer" or other scary-sounding names.

Read slowly, take your time. There should be no real danger unless you are extremely careless. Don't proceed unless you know what you are doing and have verified your backups.

Step By Step

1) Insert your Reinstall Drive and make sure it appears in the Finder

2) Open Terminal.app (in Finder press Command-Shift-U to quickly go to the Utilities folder)

3) In Terminal, type (or paste) these following commands:

   DEVICE=`mount | fgrep 'Mac OS X Install' | awk '{print $1}'` 

 if [ "$DEVICE" != "" ]; then ; echo $DEVICE ; fi 

You should see something like "/dev/disk?s?" where the ?s are replaced by numbers. If all you get a blank line, something went wrong. Make sure the drive appears in Finder.

4) Still in Terminal, type/paste this line:

   diskutil unmount "/Volumes/Mac OS X Install" 

which should tell you "Volume Mac OS X Install on disk?s? unmounted" (again, where ? and ? will be numbers). This will unmount but not eject the drive.

5) READ this entire step, and make sure you understand it, before you do anything.

Now we will tell dd to:

a) read input from the "$DEVICE" named above. This is the "Input File" which is identified using if=/dev/disk?s? (where ? are numbers)

b) copy what you read (in step 'a') out to a new file. This is the "Output File" which is identified using of=WhateverYouWant.iso (I went with airinstall.iso for simplicity and clarity).

c) We also need to tell dd to use a Block Size of 2048 (this last part may not be 100% necessary, but I have seen it suggested and it is how I have done mine, and it worked).

If you put all of that together, it should look like this:

   /bin/dd if="$DEVICE" of="$HOME/Desktop/airinstall.iso" bs=2048 

WARNING: if, by some bizarre chance, you already have a file named "$HOME/Desktop/airinstall.iso" be sure to move or rename it before you enter that line. Otherwise it will be overwritten.

(The Output File does not have to be saved to the Desktop, I just chose that because it is a place most people will notice.)

If you see an error "dd: /dev/disk?s?: Resource busy" then the device did not unmount properly in step #4.

If you copied my "DEVICE=" line above in Step #3, you should be able to use "$DEVICE" in the 'dd' line to automatically fill in the proper device.

Note!

• the 'dd' command may run for 20-30 minutes, or longer. Don't panic. Just go do something else for awhile.

• nothing new will appear on the screen until 'dd' is finished.

• When it is done you should see something like this:

  3738954 0 records in
  3738954 0 records out

The "records in" should equal the "records out" (although your number might not be the same as mine).

6) Assuming everything went as expected, you can now tell the computer to eject the Apple Reinstall Drive by entering this line in Terminal:

   diskutil eject "$DEVICE" 

It should tell you that the device was ejected. If so, it will be safe to physically disconnect the Apple Reinstall Drive from the USB port of your computer.

7) Open the .iso file in Disk Utility. If you used my /bin/dd line above, you can now enter:

   open -a "Disk Utility" "$HOME/Desktop/airinstall.iso" 

and Disk Utility will open and the .iso will appear in the left sidebar.

Note: we are now done with Terminal.app. You may quit it and switch over to Disk Utility for the next steps.

8) You should see airinstall.iso in the left side of Disk Utility window. If you look at the bottom of the window you will see it is not mounted. Click the "Open" button on the top toolbar to mount the .iso file.

NOTE: When you mount the .iso file, Finder will probably jump up and show you the window like an excited schoolchild. If that happens, just switch back to Disk Utility.

This is what Disk Utility will look like after you mount the .iso:

Note that the capacity it shown, and the open button is now a greyed out "Mount" button, and the "Eject" button is now available.

9) Insert your generic USB drive now. You will need an 8GB USB drive. I'm usng a SanDisk because it's what I already had.

Here is Disk Utility showing my USB drive. A few important things to notice:

Make sure the drive is formatted as "Mac OS Extended" or "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)."

The "Name" of your drive isn't important. Notice mine is "USB_MOUNT" but the important thing is that I have it selected in Disk Utility.

10) We are now going to tell Disk Utility to "Restore" the .iso's "Mac OS X Install" to "USB_MOUNT" by doing three things:

a) click the "Restore" button (see red box below)

b) Control-Click ("right click") on the "Mac OS X Install" line, and select "Set as source" as shown here. You could also just drag the Mac OS X Install volume over to the Source: field in the right-hand pane.

c) Control-Click on the "Name" of your generic USB drive (mine is "USB_MOUNT") and choose "Set as destination." Again, you could alternatively drag-and-drop the volume icon into the blank Destination field on the right side, per the onscreen instructions.

11) When you are ready to restore, it should look something like this:

If everything looks correct, click the "Restore" button on the bottom right. Disk Utility will give you a "human readable" explanation of what it is about to do:

Read through it to make sure that you haven't accidentally swapped the Source and Destination fields. When you click "Erase" OS X will prompt you for your administrator password. Once you enter it, the restore process will begin.

This took 30 minutes on my MacBook Air, so it's a good time to take that Apple Software Reinstall Drive and put it somewhere safe. (I highly recommend putting it back in the box your MacBook Air came in. You kept the box, right?)

Once the Restore Process completes, Finder will most likely mount the generic USB drive.

Disk Utility will look like this:

Now we're ready to test it, so quit all of your applications, logout, and shutdown the computer.

The Proof is in the Booting

The only real test that matters is whether or not you can boot your MacBook Air with the generic USB drive.

After the computer id turned off, make sure that:

• the official Apple Softwware Reinstall Drive is not connected to your MacBook Air
• the generic USB drive is connected to the MacBook Air

Then power the computer on and press the Option/Alt key.

In a few moments you should a screen offering the option of booting from your hard drive or the USB drive. Choose the USB drive.

When it finishes booting, it will start into the "Install OS X" screens and ask you to select a language. Don't panic. Select a language, and then at the next screen you can exit out of the installer.

(If you want to set an Open Firmware Password, this would be a good time to do it, since you can't set it when booting off the internal drive, but if you do, remember that if you forget the password, a trip to the Apple Store is your only hope of recovering it.)

That's it

The USB drive won't work on any other computer, but it can add a little peace of mind to know that you have another copy of your restore drive in case you ever need it.

Make a backup copy of the MacBook Air USB Software Reinstall Drive originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Make a backup copy of the MacBook Air USB Software Reinstall Drive originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Recently I noticed that my iPad was not charging as quickly as it used to. Only a month or so ago I was impressed at how my iPad's battery would easily charge up to the 80% range in a couple short hours, but more recently the same charge time would produce a meager 10% if I was lucky. It was infuriating, and the only thing more infuriating was that I couldn't figure out why. After doing a bit of research this is what I discovered.

Being aware that the iPad requires more power to charge (10 watts), I was sure that I was using the right adapter, the one that came in the box with my iPad. However, I became increasingly aware that I had various iOS power adapters strewn all over the house which looked identical to what I assumed was the iPad charger as well as a few compact adapters, one of which came with my iPhone 4, and others that I just seem to have accumulated from goodness knows where. I suddenly realised that I could have easily picked up the wrong charger and mistaken it for the iPad one. The problem was how to decipher one adapter from the next.

The compact Apple Power USB Adapter, the one that comes with an iPhone 4 or 3GS, is a 5 watt adapter, but it doesn't actually say that anywhere on it. However, it does indicate that the output is 5 volts at 1.1 amps (5V 1A), which means 5 watts (I realised this after a bit of learning about electricity). This adapter will charge your iPad, but at a much slower rate because it only has an output of 5 watts. According to Apple's website, this adapter is compatible with all iPhones and iPod touches as well as what appears to be all previous iPods too, but not the iPad.

Gallery: iPad USB Charging Adapter

The more chunky adapter that comes with the iPad is a 10 watt adapter. Thankfully, this adapter is labelled as a 10W USB Power Adapter (see gallery). Its output is 5 volts at 2.1 amps (5.1V 2.1A) which means 10 watts. Obviously, this is the adapter that will charge your iPad correctly, and as a result, the fastest.

However, there is a third adapter that looks identical to the iPad adapter, but it will not charge your iPad at 10 watts. Apple doesn't sell these anymore, but you may have a few around your house if you ever had a wall charger for previous generation iPods and iPhones. This is where I went wrong and couldn't figure out why my iPad wasn't charging correctly, I was using one of these adapters mistaking it for the iPad one. Fortunately these adapters are labelled iPod USB Power Adapter (see gallery).

I finally located my iPad adapter attached to a travel adapter I'd thrown in a drawer after recently being abroad. And I'm pleased to say my iPad is charging normally once again!

Don't make the same mistake I did, make sure that your iPad is being charged by the correct 10 watt power adapter that came in the box with your iPad or a third party iPad compatible charging accessory.

How to make sure you're charging your iPad correctly originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

How to make sure you're charging your iPad correctly originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The eject key sits in the upper right corner of most modern Apple keyboards. On my big iMac with its SuperDrive, it occasionally gets pressed when I need to kick out a backup DVD, but the rest of the time it sits alone. It's even worse on a MacBook Air. With no SuperDrive to speak of, the eject key was replaced with a tiny power button and the eject function moved to the F12 key next door. What do you do with a key that has outlived its usefulness? Give it another reason to live!

This all got started when one of the employees at Other World Computing, the folks who make all of those fast internal SSDs for MacBook Pros and other devices, had the optical drive on his 2011 MacBook Pro removed and replaced with an OWC Data Doubler + 750 GB hard disk drive. OWC's Erik was already enjoying a speedy 480 GB SSD as his startup drive in the MacBook Pro, but wanted the luxury of more storage.

With his eject key now taking up space and not paying the rent, Erik looked around and found a free app called KeyRemap4MacBook. The app remaps most of the non-alphanumeric keys on the Macbook keyboard to a set of different functions. Not only can you assign duplicate keys (Option and Command keys, for example) to perform different functions, but KeyRemap4MacBook makes keys do different things depending on what app you're currently using (note that you can already do this to a point using Keyboard Shortcuts in System Preferences).

Erik used the app to remap his eject key to be a forward delete key (Fn + Delete), and noted that if he does happen to have an external optical drive connected to the MBP, KeyRemap4MacBook thoughtfully provides a way to use the eject key as, well, an eject key.

One thing that KeyRemap4MacBook doesn't do is use a standard delay when pressed, so there's a companion app called NoEjectDelay by the same developer that clears the eject key delay.

The inquiring minds at TUAW want to know what function you'd remap your eject key to perform, or if you'd just turn the eject key into one-half of a pair of cufflinks. Leave us a note in the comments below.

On re-purposing the increasingly useless eject key originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

On re-purposing the increasingly useless eject key originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One of the unsung joys of being a Mac consultant is getting emails from clients with problems that aren't critical enough warrant a billable office visit but still need attention. This morning, I heard from client who needed to add two Macs onto the office AirPort network but couldn't remember the password. Here's how she (and you) can retrieve that password.

Most of the time when Mac users are asked to create a password on the Mac, there's a small check box just below asking if you want to "store the password on the keychain." If you're like many Mac users, you're not really sure what that means but you check the box anyway. What it does mean is that the password is then stored in the Mac's keychain, which is Apple's password management system that has been around since the days of Mac OS 8.6.

Fortunately, Apple provides an application that you can use to find out what password you used three years ago and have since forgotten. It's called Keychain Access, and it is tucked away in the Utilities folder that resides in your Applications folder. Hint -- if you're not familiar with the Utilities folder, there's a quick way to get to it from the Finder menu bar. Just select Go > Utilities to open a Finder window filled with all sorts of fun apps, from the handy (and dangerous) Disk Utility to the under-appreciated X11.

I told my client to launch Keychain Access and then click on the "login keychain" in the list of keychains on the left side of the app window. A list of passwords appears, one of which has a "kind" of "AirPort network password." Double-clicking that entry brings up a dialog similar to the one shown below:

See where it says "show password"? A click on the checkbox next to that brings up a dialog that asks for the keychain password, which is generally the administrator password on your Mac. Enter that password and click OK, and you may be asked to enter the password once again. Once that's done, the password should auto-magically appear in the field next to "show password."

This trick has worked many times for me when my clients have forgotten a password or misplaced the Post-It Note that they wrote it on. Hopefully it will help out some TUAW readers as well.

Mac 101: Using Keychain Access to remember the password you forgot originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Mac 101: Using Keychain Access to remember the password you forgot originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Midnight slowdowns originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Midnight slowdowns originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I renewed MobileMe in April for $99. It appears there will be no refund. Where's the loud and insistent outcry?

Your rather ticked-off nephew,

Z

Dear Z,

Auntie totally gets where you are coming from (although as far as she's concerned, MobileMe is something that always happened to other people). Apple has renewed all MobileMe customers until the middle of 2012 but, honestly, what's the point?

Anyway, Apple has clarified its MobileMe refund policy on this Knowledge Base page. Unused activation codes and codes used for 45 days or less will be fully refunded. Codes used for 46 days or more will receive pro-rated refunds. Shipping costs and rebates will be deducted from any refunds. You'll need to provide proof-of-purchase documentation before submitting any claims.

You can contact Apple directly and request a refund by phone. This worldwide list of numbers provides contact information on a country-by-country basis. That's what Uncle Steve did.

He renewed at the start of the year, getting a few months of service but paying for the entire year. He might have gotten a couple of months more value than you but he's totally in the same boat. So Auntie made him call up Apple and demand, I tell you, demand that refund.

Here's what happened. He was quickly transferred to the MobileMe department, and the phone rep there recommended that he wait on canceling. "You can cancel your MobileMe subscription at any time for a pro-rated refund," they told him. "However, if you use MobileMe for email, contacts, calendar, iDisk files, and MobileMe Gallery, that information is going to be deleted and you won't be able to sync devices."

The Apple support rep recommended waiting until iCloud becomes available. "[If you wait until] those services are available to you, you can cancel the MobileMe subscription and receive a refund for the remainder of the year. You cannot reactivate your MobileMe subscription after you cancel it, so be sure that if you are going to cancel that you have alternative sources for email, and for syncing. "

Uncle Steve chose to wait. He's going to cancel after iOS 5 and iCloud are firmly chugging along this Fall and request his pro-rated refund at that point. You might want to wait and do the same. That's because Uncle Steve is very sensitive about his "mac.com" email address. He wants to keep it forever and ever, and hug it and love it and call it "George." It appears that he'll be able to do so. Yay!

He's more than a little concerned about the 5 GB free storage limit on iCloud, though. His email will chew that up in no time -- much like how Auntie's little Pekingese puppy Spunky Sue (AKC registered name "Spunky Sue Your Pants Off Champion Johnnie Cochran") chewed up Auntie's favorite slippers last week.

You'll discover a wealth of information about iCloud both in the press release announcing the service and in the web pages that describe it, so be sure to do a little reading for your homework.

Do you have any other concerns about MobileMe and the transition to iCloud? Let Auntie know in the comments.

Hugs,

Auntie T.

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me get a MobileMe refund originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me get a MobileMe refund originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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