Adam Rosen - page 11

Among the iPhone 4 hubbub there appears to be little discussion about the performance of iOS4 on older hardware.  Apple has noted that iOS4 runs in a limited fashion on the iPhone 3G, and removed many features to ensure adequate performance, but it’s not clear that goal has been met.

Last week we posted an article about using a double hard reset to improve performance after upgrading (see: Speed Up iPhone 3G + iOS4 with a Hard Reset?)  The problem appears to be a widespread issue: it’s been discussed (among other places) on the Apple Support Forums, MacInTouch and AppleToolbox, and during this past week has become one of the most viewed topics on Cult of Mac.

Cupertino, I think we have a problem.  Another one.

User Interface Watch: Apple’s march towards hands free, thought controlled computing continued this past week with the widely misunderstood iPhone 4 “Death Grip” episode.  Perceived and quickly lambasted as a design flaw, Apple is stategically taking high levels of flak as they quietly persue their true longterm goal.

[Tags: ANALYSIS, HUMOR, SATIRE]

Steve Jobs has always been a minimalist, be it product design, the breadth of his wardrobe, or succinct email replies.  This minimalism also applies to the ways in which we interact with our computers.

Early computers required both hands and all fingers to operate, utlilizing bulky keyboards.  This mimicked the way humans had conveyed information since the invention of the typewriter, but was clearly just a technology to be milked for all it was worth, then cast aside.

Now here’s a classic set of unboxing photos!  Over at Clone77’s 365 days project the newest iWonder gets the Imperial delivery and setup treatment from an industrious bunch of mini Stormtroopers.  Love the coordinated effort, and use of the lightsaber for cutting the plastic!

Clone77 appears to be on a yearlong project to expose his troopers to the wider world, very entertaining.  The iPhone 4 arrived on Day 133.

Thanks to the always-enjoyable iPhoneSavior for the tip.

I’m an iPhone 3G owner, and am pleased that my “nearly obsolete” two year old iDevice qualifies for the iOS4 upgrade.  I understand (and am satisfied with) the trade-offs Apple made to minimize the performance hit on this model, but as others have reported I’ve noticed a distinct slowdown in my iPhone since upgrading.  Apps take longer to load, Mail messages open slower, the whole system just feels more sluggish.

A comment posted to MacInTouch suggests that a double Hard Reset of the phone may help minimize this problem, and indeed this has noticeably seemed to help with mine.

This just in: after a power outage hit the taping of Jimmy Kimmel Live! earlier today, our intrepid host lept to the rescue with a Mac user’s quick thinking – plus the Power of QuickTime.  Kimmel improvised and with the help of the crew taped the entire show using his MacBook’s iSight webcam.

Kitchen Performers and Video Bloggers rejoice – your video production tool of choice has been vindicated!  The show airs Wed 23 June at 12:05AM EST on ABC if you want to see how it all worked out…

Thanks to MacWorld for the tip.

Backing up your computer is like flossing teeth or mowing the lawn – something you know you should do but usually don’t. Apple has gone to great lengths to make Time Machine, the backup program included with Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard, easy and fun to use. Those aren’t terms which you typically hear applied to backup programs, and these efforts are to be commended.

Time Machine is easy to setup, but restoring files is not as intuitive. Many of my clients ask me for help with how to do this, and how to ensure that their backups are running reliably. Time Machine allows for restoration of files, folders, applications or an entire Mac, depending on your need.

A review of the process couldn’t hurt. Like chicken soup from Grandma …

The Atlantic has posted an article discussing the iPad’s appeal to Baby Boomers, and makes some good arguments as to why the newest iDevice may be a huge hit with this demographic:

1. It isn’t that hard to use.

Your mom is awful with a computer. That time you taught her how to use e-mail, you felt like you needed a fifth of Jack to quench your frustration. But downloading an app is much, much easier than installing a program in Windows. You just go to the app store, download it, and — voila! If she thought a Mac was easy to use, wait until she sees an iPad in action. Just pray she doesn’t discover Facebook.

Currently my Mom doesn’t see the need for an iPad at all – she’s yet to be convinced that an upcoming switch from dialup to cable modem will make a difference in how she uses her computer.  But as the article notes, perhaps that may change…

Thanks to Digg for the tip.

As the tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues, many of us wish there was some way we could help.  iPhone users along the Gulf coast now have an opportunity.  Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have created MoGO, a free iPhone app to report injured animals in spill affected areas, take geo-tagged photos and send them directly to groups providing assistance.

Say the app’s developers:

Extra Credit for originality here.  Over on Etsy.com – which seems to be full of fashionable iDevice accessories –  Mtodonnel offers this whimsical iPad sleeve made from “refashioned and refelted boiled wool”.  Complete with black turtleneck sweater top and a front pocket for your cords, it looks comfortable and vintage.  Wonder if the iPad gets itchy while inside?

Thanks to iPhoneSavior for the tip.

On the eve of WWDC, a speculative story on mp3newswire.net suggests some interesting possibilities for Apple in the video and media space given the explosive adoption of iDevices:

In 1959 5,749,000 television sets were sold in the US, bringing the cumulative total of sets sold since 1950 to 63,542,128 units. This number supported, through advertising, three national television networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS (a fourth, Dumont, folded in 1956) and numerous local independent stations. Television was big business by the start of the 1960’s.

Now here are another set of numbers. As of April this year Apple sold 75 million iPhone and iPod touch units, devices capable of delivering video via Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. Add to that figure 2 million iPads and counting. By the end of the year Apple should have about 90 million smart mobile devices in the wild.

Since the days of Mac OS X 10.3 “Panther” Apple has provided a wonderful utility, Migration Assistant, to help move data between your old and new Macs. With this utility you can easily migrate your installed applications, system settings and user data from your old system to your new one.

On the whole Migration Assistant works very well, performs successfully more often than not, and has gotten better with every subsequent release of Mac OS X. However despite Apple’s best efforts there are times when Migration Assistant can’t or won’t work.

A Manual Mac System Migration is just a fancy term for copying things over. The key is knowing what needs to be moved and how to connect the two machines.

Children are excellent arbiters of the truth, their reactions are honest and straightforward.  In the case of the iPad, those reactions include excitement and awe.

Apple has noticed.  After a group of students from Wesley Chapel, Florida was photographed trying out some iPads at their local Apple store, the images made their way to Apple.  The company just sent 13 free iPads to some very lucky students, and may use the pictures in an upcoming ad campaign.

Kudos all around – a win for everybody here!  Thanks to AppleInsider for the tip.

Forget the escalating Apple – Google rivalry for a moment, the latest chapter in the war against Apple unfolds in New York:
Yankee Stadium has banned iPads.
Apparently their existing security restrictions prohibiting laptop computers extend to the new Handheld Wonder, leaving multitasking attendees all atwitter.

Good opportunity here for my hometown team (and legendary Yankee rival) Boston Red Sox to encourage iPads at Fenway Park, and create a custom app for enhancing the game day experience. With the Express Written Permission of Major League Baseball, of course…

What would you want to have on your iPad while watching the game?

Thanks to Mashable for the tip.

WiFi operates in unregulated portions of the radio spectrum.  These frequencies are shared with things like microwave ovens, cordless phones, garage door openers and an increasing plethora of other WiFi devices.  What many WiFi networks face these days is like trying to tune in to a weak radio station in a busy city market.

This week a few tips and suggestions to try when things aren’t working.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Prf5Oy1n7iM

Think you already know all the new iPhone 4G will do?  A tip-o-the-hat to Cult of Mac reader Mario Baluci, who wrote to tell us about this short rendering of the upcoming iPhone (or what it may look like) that he created as a promo for his Make Coffee iPhone app.  Silly, but the video is nicely done.

Perhaps rev2 will control one of the webcam coffee machines still dripping away on the internet…

This week a tip for Firefox power users. In addition to the Preferences accessible via the menubar, Firefox retains a comprehensive set of hidden settings that go back to it’s roots in the Netscape era.

Of course you are presented with an initial Caveat Emptor about the stability of your system and all that, but you’ve already jailbroken your iPhone and iPad (right?) so go ahead and dive right in…

As an IT consultant you get accustomed to certain problems and complaints from users.  “My computer is running slow” is a universal favorite.  “You said this would only take a few minutes” is another perennial frontrunner.

But one stands out as arguably the most common end user headache: “My Email Isn’t Working.”

Sigh… Welcome to the club.  Email headaches are endless.  Fortunately, many issues are common problems that can be fixed relatively easily.

RetroMacCast listener newtonpoetry imagines what Apple’s website might have been circa 1983 and circa 1993.  Love that beige menubar and those blazing system speeds!

RetroMacCast is a (mostly) weekly podcast about Apple’s Olde Beige Stuffe (and newer shiny items), always some topics of interest for classic Mac geeks.

These days many people do some or most of their music listening on the computer, and much of that is managed with iTunes.  It’s very nice to have such quick and easy access to your music library, podcasts and internet radio in one place, but by default these only play in the room where the computer is located.

Wouldn’t it be nice to listen throughout your whole house or office, and without breaking the bank?

Since contacting Steve has gotten so popular lately, The Joy of Tech has created this handy web based Steve Jobs Email Reply Generator for simplifying the process…

Artists make use of the tools around them.  The iPhone is one of the newer ones in the toolkit, and it’s unique capabilities and limitations make for some interesting results.

Norm Zarr says about the Art of iPhone Photography:

“It’s a challenge to take great photos with an iPhone. Compared to most any digital camera, it doesn’t stand up as a camera. But the integration of the iPhone camera, the internet, and the hundreds of camera App’s has made it truly a mobile photographic workstation. This brilliant connection of technologies makes the power of iPhone far beyond the camera itself.”

Some of Norm’s work is shown on his website, Norm Zarr iPhone Photography Galleries; all photos are taken and edited on an iPhone.  A very nice mobile version for Safari on the iPhone is also available.

Welcome to MacRx, a new category dedicated to some common setups, problems and headaches of All Things Mac. As we all know, how things should work isn’t always how they do work.  Sometimes a little assistance can be in order.

This week an issue I’ve seen many users struggling with, Managing Bookmarks in Safari. As a Mac consultant I frequently run into clients who can’t find the bookmarks they’ve added to their systems, or have so many bookmarks saved that the list is virtually endless and unuseable.

Getting to know the ways in which Safari stores bookmarks, and coming up with a simple organizing scheme you can follow, will go a long way in preserving your sanity – or at least help save some time occasionally.

From the “oh that’s awesome” category — which quickly leads to the credit card coming out of the wallet  — some of the most unique and whimsical iPhone stands I’ve seen from Forked Up Art.

Stands are $30 each, come in portrait and landscape orientations, and are made of genuine used cutlery.  The best form of recycling I’ve seen recently. It’s earned a place in my kitchen!

Thanks to iPhone Savior for the tip.

The cleverly-named PyP-Bomb iPod/Guitar Amp is a battery-powered speaker and amp made from a section of PVC pipe.

Optimized for the iPod, the $150 PyP-Bomb generates 18 watts of sound and is “seriously loud,” according to ThinkGeek site, which sells them.

Can that be true? Is 18 watts a lot of sound? Sure looks distinctive.

Spotted on Flickr, a homemade iPod speaker system from someone called ianbrown42 (surely not the great Ian Brown):

“These are remote iPod speakers I scratch-built for my wife’s iPod shuffle. It’s all scientific glass and aluminium construction. The sub-woofer is an inverted glass dome, and a fresnel lens from a rail-car. The guts of the thing is borrowed from a stock computer amp, whilst the speakers themselves are Apple Pro’s.”

“You can see from this alternate view that the tripod legs are made from aluminium garden trowles, polished up.

You can see the CD player I used to test it in the bottom right corner – this thing is huge, and weighs a ton (15 kilos).

The sound is pretty good, as you would expect of apple speakers, but the sub-woofer thumps a bit. Overall a fun project!”