Pete Mortensen - page 32

You know what’s great about Google? When it does something for Mac, it does it right. Its support comes in late, but it comes in right. This is why I was delighted to see that when Google finally made its data APIs available to Mac developers today, they did it the right way: An Objective-C Cocoa framework allowing direct access to Google Base, GCal, Blogger and others for any Cocoa-developed apps. Engineer Greg Robbins explains:

The native language for Mac OS X applications is Objective-C, and it’s our preferred language for Mac application development. To make it simpler for us to write Mac software that interacts with Google services, I created a framework to use Google data APIs directly in Objective-C programs. We are using the framework for our application development, and today we are making the framework available to all developers. The Google Data APIs Objective-C Library joins MacFUSE and Breakpad as open-source development efforts of Google’s Mac software team, hosted at code.google.com.

The APIs have been available via Javascript and Java since last year, but it’s reassuring to see Google go the extra mile for Mac developers. It all brings the dream of truly pervasive information that much closer. Google is winning, and we’re all playing along. But they’re just so darned nice about it, you know?
Official Google Mac Blog: Google data APIs connect Cocoa developers to Google
Via Digg.

Technorati Tags: developers, google

As ever, Ars Technica has the best technical coverage of Intel’s Developer Forum. For those of us who care less about the details of things like systems-on-a-chip and pinball grid arrays, they always manage to cut to what really matters. Here’s what you need to know: The upcoming Penryn chip, the mooted successor to the Intel Core2 Extreme line, is going to absolutely scream at video encoding.
The developmental iron came through with a 221 percent speed improvement on DiVX encoding. That’s unheard of in this era. Most of the performance improvements are more linear, but this chip is coming to rock. I’ll take four quads, please.
Intel details Penryn performance, new SSE4 extensions:

Technorati Tags: intel, Penryn

Ah, the Joy of Tech. The venerable geek cartoonists nail the Leopard delay with their strip today. Click through to see the full strip.

Technorati Tags: joyoftech, leopard, software

On the off chance that the Coen Bros. talking up the virtues of Final Cut Studio 2 doesn’t have you reaching for your charge card yet, you could try out this testimonial from director Miranda July, who made the truly wonderful “Me and You and Everyone We Know” last year.
If nothing else, this NAB keynote is bringing us plenty of insight into the creative process for a wide range of directors.

Technorati Tags: apple, director, final cut studio, testimonial

Despite rumors of its demise, Apple’s Get a Mac ad campaign rolls on. Introduced this week are Stuffed (above) Computer Cart and Flashback, both after the jump. Of the three, the journey back to the childhood of Mac and PC is my favorite, but this series is really starting to feel tired. There’s only so much more that Apple can do here, and I’m ready to see them, you know, actually show the goods with OS X instead of just going abstract.
Just my 2 cents. Click through to see the others.

Technorati Tags: apple, get a mac

I’ve been thinking a lot about Apple’s much-analyzed decision to delay the release of Leopard, Mac OS X 10.5, until October. Ultimately, it’s not that big a deal. If you read between the lines, the diversion of software development resources to finish the iPhone could have long-term benefits for the platform.
As a refresher, here’s what Apple had to say for themselves:

iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can’t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard’s features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we’re sure we’ve made the right ones.

I have to agree. After all, many of the best innovations — or at least great new products, are created by mixing the DNA of one successful platform with another. OS X and the iPhone OS share a hell of a lot of code. Apple should have no trouble at all adding multi-touch support to Macs. I’m hoping to see the world’s greatest tablet laptop — and the first one worth owning — emerge from this delay in the first place.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball has an interesting view of just why Apple fell behind in the first place, too. Check it out.

Technorati Tags: apple, iphone, mac os x

Don’t you just love when mainstream business media try to use technology code names? For the future record, guys, Apple is working on Leopard. Jaguar came out almost five years, under the unsexy name “Mac OS X v10.2.” But hey, it’s all big cats, right?

Technorati Tags: apple, jaguar, mac os x

I had thought, by now, that Apple would have sued everyone using the word pod in the name of their products. Not so. Shopping at Whole Foods this afternoon, I spotted the Airpod, a high-tech air filter system that goes out of its way to look like an iPod, right down to placing the circular wheel filter at the bottom of the rectangular form.
It’s shameless appropriation of the form. Maybe it’s just bombastic enough for Apple to leave them alone? Click through for a picture of the packaging. It’s like a nano gone wrong.

Technorati Tags: airpod, ipod

So Apple’s had one HELL of a first quarter, haven’t they? With tax day nearly upon us, I thought it might be a good idea to look back at how well Apple is answering the issues that I thought were important late in December of last year, especially now that the AppleTV is out in the market and the iPhone has set the world on fire with its hype flames. Or something. So click through — we’ll laugh, we’ll cry, and we’ll learn something about forecasting. Here, again, are the 10 Questions Apple Must Answer in 2007 — and how well they’re responding.

Technorati Tags: apple, speculation, Steve Jobs

Everyone who ever said built-in iSights were a security risk? They’ve been proven right again, but this time in reverse. A MacBook used in London Fashion Week and set to upload Photo Booth pictures to the Topshop site was snatched about a week ago. In the mean time, the crooks have used Photo Booth A LOT, sending their ridiculous mugs right to the top of the queue.
The victim of the theft has confirmed it’s true to Gizmodo today:

This is not a hoax. Two computers were stolen from the Covent Garden venue during London Fashion Week, London, UK. These computers were set up to automatically upload photos to the Topshop London Fashion Week Website via the Topshop Flickr Account. About a month after the theft new photos appeared on our Flickr account and London Fashion Week website. Whether the people in the photos are the thieves, or have just bought a dodgy computer is still in question. As of Thursday 5th April 2007, these computers had still not been recovered.

Anyone recognize their sketchy friends here?
Stolen Laptop Pics Not a Hoax After All – Gizmodo

Technorati Tags: iSight, macbook

Anyone check out the new AppleTV ad yet? It’s narrated by none other than John Krasinski, better known as Jim “Fat” Halpert on NBC’s “The Office.” Interestingly enough, HP has a huge promotional concern on the series, and its displays are everywhere on the show. Apple always wins, don’t they?

Via TVAddict.
Thanks, Kimra!

Dig it. Within six months, the Wii and the AppleTV will be one device.

Via Gizmodo.

Technorati Tags: apple, appleTV, software

AppleTV just got one step closer to being a full-fledged replacement for a stand-alone Web-browsing device thanks to AppleTV RSS Plugin from twenty08 software. The fun little app adds a new channel to Apple’s hackable box, and then you can make it display your favorite RSS feed. <cough>US, for example.</cough>
The little application will soon support ATOM feeds and video RSS. Can’t wait. This is all nice, but it still can’t compete with what’s officially supported on the Nintendo Wii, which has a headline news reader, weather and even a complete browser. Isn’t that crazy?
Via Digg.

Technorati Tags: appleTV, software

Lawmakers are out of touch and corrupt. Democrats in my home state, Michigan, appear to have reinforced this image by proposing $38 million be spent on iPods for every student in the public schools to use as learning tools.
As you might expect, this proposal has drawn guffaws and outrage from armchair analysts across the land. Newspapers and bloggers alike have gone out of their way to highlight the spending bill as reflecting a worldview that can’t fix things. Don’t believe it. This story has a lot more to it than iPods. At the heart of the matter is a state that seems dead set on dying. Read on to learn what you aren’t hearing.

Technorati Tags: back-dating, ipod

We’re entering a new phase of iPhone speculation. Last fall was Phase I: Ludicrous predictions from people who have never seen one. January until now has been Phase II: Potshots and Idol Worship. And now on to Phase III: Summaries of the obvious.
I submit as the beachhead indicator of Phase III these comments from UBS Specialist Tony Andersson, who concludes that, brace yourself, iPhone sales could have a negative impact on iPod sales. Phew! Are you breathing again yet?

Technorati Tags: apple, iphone, speculation

Everyone is loving the story of the iPod that allegedly saved the life of U.S. Infantryman Kevin Garrad in Tikrit (read more at Gadget Lab). Though it seems like the perfect story, there is actually more to this tale than you might assume. First of all, the iPod didn’t save his life. His body armor did. And it isn’t even an Apple model. Click through for the rest of the story.

Technorati Tags: ipod, iRaq

One of Apple’s greatest feature introductions of the last few years is the use of two fingers to turn a PowerBook or MacBook trackpad into a two-button wonder. It’s an incredibly elegant solution that feels significantly better than awkward multi-button Windows trackpad laptops.
But it also only works on 2005 or later PowerBooks, which left, well, almost everyone out of the party. Until now. iScroll2 is an open-source project that promises to bring the two-finger scroll dance to older PowerBooks. It’s very early in development, so try it at your own risk. My 2003 12″ PowerBook is not supported, so I’m still out in the cold. Anyone got it working? Is it worth our time?

Via Digg.

Feel the love, people! MaxGizmo, a band based in Toronto (where I happen to be right now — and I’m a little drunk), has just released a fairly awesome song about the glories of the Mac 512k, the first Mac that was capable of, well, doing stuff. It loses points for casual use of a slur, but the beat’s catchy enough. Dig it!

Thanks, Harrison!

Image via EldoCountry

So, I might or might not be interviewed by On the Media soon regarding my thoughts about the Apple/EMI deal that will soon bring us DRM-free iTunes music downloads. It’ll basically depend on if they can find me a studio in Toronto or not — I’ll keep you posted. In collecting these thoughts, the following thing occurred to me: I have no idea if it’s a good thing or not. After giving it some more thought, it’s definitely good, bad and ugly…I mean, unclear. This is the most theoretical I’ve gotten in awhile, so definitely click through to see what it’s all about.

It’s good to be the king, isn’t it Steve? Especially when standing next to Damon Albarn, lead singer of The Good, The Bad and the Queen. Damn. Steve is relishing this DRM-free breakthrough with EMI:

“We are going to give iTunes customers a choice–the current versions of our songs for the same 99 cent price, or new DRM-free versions of the same songs with even higher audio quality and the security of interoperability for just 30 cents more,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think our customers are going to love this, and we expect to offer more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of this year.”

Hear that, other record companies? They’re Steve’s footsteps — you’re all prey. His smug grin is coming for you.

Pic by Jeffrey Sharp 

Fake Steve Jobs is a hero. While the real Steve is locked away running Apple and guiding breakthroughs like the iPhone, Fake Steve, who invented the friggin’ iPod, is giving revealing interviews to media organizations.

Finally, in a new interview with Engadget, Fake Steve really opens up:

I was really into NeXT, whatever happened with that?

Well, we had some issues around pricing. Like, we figured out what the product should cost, and then we multiplied that by four and set our prices that way. Turns out we were over-overpricing. When I returned to Apple we figured out how to overprice correctly. About 50% more than the reasonable price is about what people are wiling to pay to get a product that makes them cooler than everyone else. So now instedad of over-overpricing, we’re just overpricing. And as our results indicate, it’s working.

That’s why they pay this man the big bucks.

It’s official – the AppleTV is the company’s most hacked piece of hardware since the Apple II+. Need proof? Less than two weeks after the launch of the living room digital media server, a hacker has loaded the $300 device with the full version of Mac OS X, creating the cheapest Mac ever.

Semthex at Hackint0sh pulled the trick, which involves swapping out Apple’s Mach Kernel for a new one that works on the cheap box. There’s a video which appears to validate the claim. This just feels like a nice novelty, though. For twice the price, you can get a machine with way more power and, most importantly, a much-larger hard drive. Plus, the idea of running Tiger on 256 MB of RAM just made me shudder.

How much longer will it be before someone gets a full install of Parallels Desktop running Vista up on the AppleTV?

Mac OS X Running on AppleTV [AppleTV Hacks]
Via Digg.

It used to be that three things in life were inevitable: Death, taxes, and paying full Price at retail Apple Stores. Not anymore – scratch the last one off the list. Yes, Virginia – Apple does sell things at clearance prices sometimes.

I ducked into the Union Square Apple Store in San Francisco on Sunday afternoon and stumbled upon two big, clear plastic bins full of cut-rate merchandise – some of it Apple’s, including a Mighty Mouse for $10 off, Magsafe Power Adapters at almost 50 percent off, previous gen Mac minis for $70 off and, my personal favorite, the wretched official Apple iPod leather case for half price. If you’re in need of some gear, definitely check your local Apple Store to see if they’ve got something similar going.

I only got the one picture on my camera-phone – Apple employees were milling about, and I wasn’t in the mood to have my phone seized. Anyone else spotted a sale at an Apple Store?