iMac - page 11

Speculating about future Apple products is really hard to do well. That doesn’t keep everyone from trying. Even grizzled Apple-watching veterans often fail catastrophically with each new Apple announcement.

The reason it’s difficult is that “evidence,” which would normally be the best tool for predicting things, doesn’t work in Apple’s case.

The best criteria are strategic and cultural analyses. But even these are not perfectly reliable.

If you’ve struggled to accurately guess in the past what Apple will announce, don’t feel bad. Even Apple executives themselves don’t know until often very late in the game.

Here’s why predicting Apple products is so hard.

Ken Segall, who named the iMac and worked on the “Think Different” campaign, has some choice takeaways from working with Steve Jobs that he’s finally sharing in book form with Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success.

The cleanly-designed cover in Apple’s signature Myriad typeface looks almost like it should be unboxed; inside you’ll find choice insider tales of the flops, false starts and history made with Apple over the 12 years he worked with the Cupertino company. (You can read an exclusive excerpt from Insanely Simple and our review of the book here.)

Segall tells Cult of Mac about the reasoning behind that lowercase “i,” winning Jobs over and what happened when ads flopped. You can catch up with him through his blog or Facebook page, where you’ll also find details about his upcoming book tour.

WIMP computing was invented during the Nixon Administration.

In 1973, Xerox PARC developed the Alto computer, the first to use all the WIMP elements of windows, icons, menus and a pointing device, also known as a mouse.

And it’s in this nearly 40-year-old paradigm that we find ourselves trapped by a quirk of human nature: We’re creatures of habit. We don’t like to change the way we do things. And so here we are, still using a mouse (most of us, anyway).

With Mountain Lion, Apple has finally tied iCloud to the Mac desktop. While iCloud has worked seamlessly on iOS since launch, moving documents between iCould and your Mac was embarrassingly awkward, involving web browsers, dragging and dropping.

Now, it has been shoved deep into the heart of the OS, in the form of a kind of alternate Finder.

Here’s a neat trick for iCal which can be useful for those who find the default list of views (day, week, month, and year) a little too limiting.

Never in the history of consumer electronics has there been a computer more universally desirable than the Apple iPad.

Market share numbers — 83% of the market — hint at the popularity and market dominance of the iPad.

But here’s the most interesting fact about the iPad’s incredible success that most people overlook: The qualities that make iPad desirable are replicable on bigger platforms — and may even be magnified by them. Which is why it’s perfectly reasonable to predict dominant market share for the iOS-like Mac desktops of the future.

First, let’s understand the unprecedented popularity of the iPad. 

In the 50s, some futurists predicted food pills instead of meals. It never happened.

The biggest reason futurists fail is that too many predictions are based on the possible, rather than the desirable.

It’s now possible for anyone to take all their nutrition from pills. But people enjoy eating food. That’s why we don’t take pills instead.

If you want to predict the future, you need to deconstruct human nature. You also need to know what will be possible. Where these two things intersect is where accurate predictions can be made.

And that’s why I can already tell you what your iMac will be like in a few years.

Planted in your shiny new iPhone 4s and in the iOS 5 are the seeds of tomorrow’s Mac of the future, and indeed the future of all computers. You can find them if you know where to look. (And I’ll tell you where below.)

It’s not supposed to be this way. In the Microsoft world, at least, new technology starts at the top and “trickles down” from bigger and more powerful computers over time to mobile devices and eventually cell phones. If you’re focused on the machines, this makes sense, as larger computers are more capable of handling powerful new features.

But if you’re focused on the user, as Apple is, this approach doesn’t make sense. Apple has developed what I believe is a unique strategy: introduce new interfaces and new ways to interact with computers and the Internet on the smallest devices first, then scale them up over time, eventually ending up as desktop features.

If you didn’t hear the news, Cult of Mac hit 100,000 Twitter followers last week. To celebrate, we hosted a huge giveaway yesterday on Twitter. Because some people were sad that they didn’t come away with a prize, we’ve decided to extend the celebration farther into the week and give readers a few more chances to win. Today we’re giving away a Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard for Mac. It’s one of the coolest new keyboards we’ve seen because you don’t have to keep spare batteries on hand anymore. If you want a shot at winning this beautiful thing here are the rules for today’s contest:

There have been a some reports that followed the release of Mac OS X Lion from iMac users complaining about graphic or video problems.

One user reports that he’s been experiencing video artifacts on his 2011 27-inch iMac configured with a 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 and AMD Radeon HD 6970M graphics processor with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. It’s been fairly intermittent and it always disappears for a while after a restart.

Today the problem was so different and a lot worse than usual that they finally decided to call AppleCare.

You probably don’t need to hear it from us that the iPhone 4 is one hell of a video camera and that Final Cut Pro X is awesome in its own right. However, we do want to make sure our readers have access to all the best tools to fullfil their directoral dreams, so if you’re one of those with the burning desire to create the next viral video shot entirely on your iPhone 4, but lack all the tools to get said video made, here’s your chance to unleash your hidden cinematographic potential by winning a Mobile Cinematography Kit from Cult of Mac and FiLMiC Pro. Entering the contest is ridiculously simple. Here’s how to give yourself the chance to win the $400 Grand Prize Package:

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuz5OmOh_M

Steve Jobs has been keeping extremely busy this week. One day after delivering his WWDC Keynote address, Steve headed back to Cupertino to appear before the city council to discuss Apple’s new plans for their campus. While pitching the construction and design of the mega-structure, Jobs commented that the building will look ‘a little like a spaceship.’

Is your head still spinning from the smackdown of new details Steve Jobs and the Apple crew just slammed you with? Apple’s iCloud page just went live so you can get all the details on the new software that Apple is bringing to you for free later this fall. Of course, Cult of Mac will be posting all new material throughout the day breaking down iCloud and it’s features, so don’t stray too far.

If you can imagine an iPad the size of Apple’s largest iMac, with the iOS multi-touch interface plus the power of OS X, then you can imagine the next generation of computing.

You’ll use it tilted at an angle on your desk like a drafting table. Or, you’ll tilt it up for TV or presentations, or flat for using it as a table. Or you’ll use it as a coffee table or a kitchen counter top. The point is: You’ll use it.

Apple has a gazillion patents for their version of this technology. Microsoft has already promised a consumer version of Surface. The third generation of desktop computing (after command line and GUI generations) is coming.

But Google has already announced the operating system for their giant desktop multi-touch PC of the future.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w85fxNueX4g

Apple has provided us with some of the best ads ever created. The Mac vs PC Campaign ads have been some of the most memorably entertaining advertisements to grace the television. Unfortunately Apple pulled the plug on the fun banter between Mac (Justin Long) and PC (John Hodgman) last year. However, should you feel so inclined to walk down memory lane with the plethora of Mac vs PC advertisements, Adweek has compiled all 66 ads for your viewing pleasure. They’ve even got them ordered out chronologically.

[via Adweek]

update: you can also view the ads in a much more pleasant layout on Squrl.

While the beautiful hardware that Apple creates gets a lot of the attention, many people forget that the appeal of Apple’s devices is within the software more than anything else. Asymco.com recently published an article elaborating how the profit from Apple’s two operating systems (OSX and iOS) outpace the profits that Microsoft makes with Windows 3.5x over.

On the Mac side of operations the site says:

“While a lot of the credit for Apple’s success is rightfully assigned to the iOS franchises, the OS X business has more than quadrupled in five years. This has happened without drastic price fluctuations. Neither holds for the overall PC industry which has seen both volume and sales decline while prices have eroded along with profitability. On top of that, growth has nearly evaporated.”

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M1r-xsFw0Q

We’ve been playing around with the new beta release of FaceTime, and while it’s slim on features, we’re fairly pleased with the app considering it’s still in the beta phase. So far FaceTime for Mac is a simple replication of FaceTime from iOS, but it’s simplicity is what I like about it so far.

If you recently used Limera1n or GreenPois0n to jailbreak your iOS device, and want to make sure that iTunes doesn’t automatically update your device’s firmware whenever the next update is released by Apple, then here is a quick fix to prevent you from accidentally updating your iPhone/iPod/iPad.

Now that Apple has made iBooks available on all iOS devices users can read their purchased eBooks on a number of different devices. But what if you have a couple large RTF, DOC, TXT, or LIT files of your own that you want to view in iBooks you’re out of luck. In this tutorial we’re going to show you how to get digital and convert your documents into eBooks so that you can enjoy reading them on your iPad, iPhone or new iPod Touch.

Ever been singing along to a new song and wondered just what the heck the lyrics really are? Searching for the lyrics on the internet isn’t the fastest of solutions to avoid lyric confusion. Here we’re going to show you how to utilize scripts and a widget to search out the lyrics for all of the songs in your iTunes library and automatically save them to song’s meta data, so that next time you can correct your friend when they sing “where’s my Asian friend,” when the lyrics really are, “what’s my age again.”

iPods are great nifty little devices that allow you to take music off of your computer and carry  it around town with you inside a magical Apple electronic device. But what happens when you want to transfer the music that’s on your iPod and put it back on your Mac? Despite all of its friendliness, iTunes is unwilling to pry the music of your iPod or iPhone. In this walk-through we’ll show you how to reclaim your music from your iPod and get it back on your Mac.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8dJSquyUl0&feature=player_embedded

Got an old lamp-style iMac sitting dusty and unused since you first swooned over it back in 2003? Gut it, install a Larson Scanner Kit into the base and plop it on your head and you’re ready to attend your next Halloween party as… well.. take your pick? iMaCylon? Cyclops from the OS X-Men?

[via Technabob]

When we posted yesterday about a new Apple patent hinting at future touchscreen Macs, one of the excellent points made in our comments section was that one reason behind Apple’s reluctance to install touchscreen panels in their non-mobile computers is the ergonomics factor: it’s just not comfortable to constantly be leaning forward to poke and prod a screen.

A new patent from Apple shows how future touchscreen Macs might just solve the ergonomic dilemma. The patent describes a touchscreen iMac with a swiveling display that rotates into a more appropriate, horizontal configuration for multitouch. A built-in accelerometer could automatically determine the display’s orientation and trigger the appropriate interface or even operating system: for example, OS X in an upright position, iOS when prone.

At the end of the day, I don’t buy that a swiveling display is how Apple would go about solving desktop touchscreen ergonomic problems. It seems a little too finnicky as a solution. Still, at least Apple’s thinking about the problem, and if Cupertino’s history with multitouch mobile devices is anything to go by… when they finally do an iMac Touch, they’ll do it right.

If you don’t mind taking a blowtorch to your pretty unibody iMac and trephining it a bit, you can easily add an eSATA port for the connection of external hard drives to your beautiful 27-inch. That surgery’s not for the meek, though: luckily, OWC will be happy to do it $169 in under 48 hours… and for a gasp-worthy $1649 more, they’ll even cram in a 480GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD. Yowza!

The new 27-inch iMac launched today has room for two internal hard drives, including a solid state drive (SSD) that could halve boot times.

Apple suggests putting the operating system and key applications on the SSD, and everything else on a traditional Serial ATA drive, which come in 1 TB or 2 TB capacities.

The iMac’s product page says:

To give your iMac a real performance boost, configure your 27-inch iMac on the Apple Online Store with an optional 256GB solid-state drive. You can choose it as your only drive or have it installed in addition to the built-in hard drive, allowing you to store the operating system, critical applications, and important files on the solid-state drive and your other files on the hard drive. Because solid-state drives have no moving parts, the computer can access data at over twice the speed of hard drives. Which makes starting up your iMac and launching applications faster than you ever thought possible.

This is the first time the iMac has been offered with dual drives. It’s not cheap, however: A top-of-the-line 27-inch iMac with a 2 TB traditional drive and a 256 GB SSD costs $2,899 — a $900 premium over the base $1,999 price.