iphone,ipod,apple,magazines

If you have been a fan hand-held computing for any length of time, then you have probably read one of Hal Goldstein’s (thaddeus.com) magazines. He and his team (most of the content comes from the readers themselves) have published several over the years: The Portable Paper, Pocket PC, and Windows Mobile and Smartphone. There are probably a few I’ve forgotten to mention. They publish a single magazine at any one time and it tracks the leading technology. Now they’ve put Microsoft to bed and brought out something new: iPhone Life (iPhoneLife.com).

Just like their other magazines, there are articles about applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, stories about how people use their devices, how to use your iPhone or touch at work or home or with your kids. When I was into PocketPC and Windows Mobile devices, I had copies of every issue I could find, with articles tagged so I could find them when I needed to look up a tidbit. I shared more than a few of them with my friends to answer their questions.

If you have an iPhone and/or iPod touch (yeah, I have an iPhone 3Gs and a 1G iPod touch), or are thinking about getting one, you need to pick up this magazine. It may not change you’re life but then you never know. The Fall 2009 (Vol 1, No 4) issue is on the newstands now. Cost is $7.99.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a subscription to order.

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iTunes 9 update,iPhone,iPod,os x,snow leopard

Apple released an update (mainly bug fixes) to iTunes. This one, 9.0.1, doesn’t appear to add any new features, just clean up some odd behaviors.

One issue I am interested in seeing the improvements for is syncing between iTunes, and iPhone and iPod touch. Maybe it’s a perception problem on my part but it always seems to be slow to sync. Of course, it could also be the 2 megabit limit in USB 2. (Apple, why did you leave a better technology like FireWire for something so bandwidth limited like USB 2?)

BTW, the Mac OS X 10.6.1 update came out last week I think. Per the Apple support site…

The 10.6.1 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes for:

- compatibility with some Sierra Wireless 3G modems
– an issue that might cause DVD playback to stop unexpectedly
– some printer compatibility drivers not appearing properly in the add printer browser
– an issue that might make it difficult to remove an item from the Dock
– instances where automatic account setup in Mail might not work
– an issue where pressing cmd-opt-t in Mail brings up the special characters menu instead of moving a message
– Motion 4 becoming unresponsive

Anyway, it all looks good at this picnic. Grab a plate and enjoy!

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iTunes 9,iPhone,iPod,macs

Much as I love Apple and Steve Jobs (good to have you back, Steve), I must confess that I take what Apple’s Marketing says with a grain of salt. Reality sometimes fails to live up to the hype. I know, some of you are thinking "he speaks heresy!" Think back to the whole MobileMe Push-isn’t-really-Push and you’ll know what I mean.

While I like iTunes, the truth is I use it for a subset of functions (manage iPhones, iPods, and our Apple TV; sometimes play music; buy music; manage podcasts; etc.). I’m not a power user in the least. So when iTunes 9 showed up in the Software Update I yawned and flipped through the new features.

Home Sharing caught my eye. Our primary iTunes library is on the Mac mini. Four of the Mac laptops are "authorized users" under my iTunes ID. Of the laptops, mine is the "backup" machine for music. I buy most of the music for my wife and I so it made sense. She is more of a video buff so most of the movies and TV shows are her choice. I copy the MPEG-4 files to DVDs for backup.

One of the reasons I was excited about Home Sharing over the "stream sharing" method we had before is now you can copy the files directly from one iTunes instance to another. Before I would have to mount the iTunes drive and then import the files to get them into the database. Pain in the butt! Add to that the fact that I have been "upgrading" my iTunes library to iTunes+¹ music (ala non-DRM) so we can play it on other devices we have (like the PS3, PSP, "non-authorized" Macs and PCs). Home Sharing makes it easy for me pull the DRM’d stuff out of my iTunes libraries and replace it with the non-DRM’d stuff.

The other thing I love about Home Sharing is now you can compare two iTunes libraries (say a master and a backup) and figure out what’s missing. Do this by selecting the shared library (A), change the Show option from "All Items" to "Items not in my library" (B), and then select and drag a song (C).

Now if we could just get that 5 machines changed to say 8 or 10, that would truly be awesome! Families do have multiple computers, Steve. (We have 8 machines in our house: 5 Mac laptops, 2 PC laptops, and a Mac mini at last count, plus a PS3, a PSP, and some other goodies. Look, some people collect cars, I collect electronics!)

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1. I’ve been upgrading since they first allowed it so my individual bills each time are fairly small. If I had to do it all at once, ouch! This is one of those things Apple just needs to get over and allow people to upgrade piece-meal. The current "big bang" policy is costing Apple, the labels and the artists revenue.

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iPhone 2.2 update,iPod touch 2.2 update

Apple released the iPhone/iPod touch 2.2 update today. I’ve been expecting this for about a week now. Not sure why, just have. After all, Steve Jobs doesn’t ask my opinion or anything.

This update is focused more on stability issues (Mail, Safari, call setup). There’s some new features in Maps, “improved sound quality of Visual Voicemail messages” (which has been sorely needed!), and pressing the Home button when you are viewing one of your Home screens takes you back to the first Home screen. I guess if you have 12 Home screens, that last one will matter to you!

On the iTunes store front, podcasts can now be downloaded via Wi-Fi or the cellular network. This is a nice addition although I don’t know if they limited it to just audio podcasts or if they allow video podcasts as well.

One complaint I’ve seen in several forums is the inability to turn off the auto correct feature when using the Keyboard. Now you can do that via the Keyboad Settings preference. Not a big thing for me as it’s usually correct but I know for some people it’s a big thing.

Apple also released an update to the iTunes software (8.0.2) and QuickTime (7.5.5 I think). This iTunes software is a bug fix/stability release. The QT update fixes some compatibility issues with iChat.

The iPhone/iPod touch update is available via iTunes. Size is about 245MB so you have time to get a cup of coffee while the update runs. The iTunes/QT update is around 65MB so you can start sipping your coffee while it runs.

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iPhone 2.0

At last, Apple has announced the 3G iPhone availability date – July 11th – which means we are that much closer to the release of the iPhone 2.0 software! While the new phone has some neat additions (like GPS) and faster network access, I’m looking forward to the new third-party applications that will be released using the iPhone SDK. At last we are going to get real apps, not just web pages.

Many of the features in the new iPhone software will be available as an update for the iPod touch – for a fee. The last update was $20 so I assume that is going to be the cost this time. Of course if you buy a new touch you get the update as part of the package.

Apple has also announced MobileMe, an upgraded .Mac service. Of note here is that Mail, Calendar, and Contacts all become push services rather than pullservices, meaning your iPhone doesn’t have to pole the servers once every x minutes to check for new messages. Instead, the servers send a notification to the iPhone that a new message has arrived. In addition to the new services, you also get an additional 10GB of disk space (20GB total) with MobileMe. I don’t know if the space for subaccounts got increased or not.

If you already have a .Mac account, it will be upgraded to MobileMe automatically. In addition to your email address as mac.com, you will also have an email address at me.com. Not sure I care that much but hey, it’s free.

The new iPhones will be available in 8GB (black only) and 16GB (black or white) and start at $199. Details are available on the Apple web site.

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