Cult of Mac

Update: Final Cut X will be $299 and will be available in the App Store in June. Still unknown are the future of Final Cut Studio (Including Soundtrack, Motion, Compressor, Color, DVD Studio) or Express.

Apple is, at the very moment I’m writing this, taking the cloak off of Final Cut X live and to much applause in front of the Final Cut Pro User Group Network in Las Vegas. For several weeks there have been rumors and murmurings that Apple would today unveil the next iteration of its venerable Final Cut video editing software, we’re learning now those rumors were true.

Final Cut users know that the last major update the software had was about 10 years ago. Though many users love the program, it was getting so long in the tooth it was starting to look like a vampire.

Details of the new Final Cut X are still coming in since the unveiling isn’t over yet, but one attendee at the event is posting updates via twitter (thanks @fcpsupermeet). Here are some notables from his twitter stream:

• Crowd is unruly!
• Final Cut X is a full rebuild from scratch
• 64 bit – Crowd: “finally!” “thank you!”
• Cocoa, Core Animation, Open CL, Grand Central Dispatch support
• The Focus was on image quality
• Fully color managed
• Resolution independent playback/timeline all the way up to 4K
• Features people detection, single or in groups
• Non-destructive auto color balance
• Automatic audio cleanup (option to auto noise reduce audio, more)
• Features “smart collections”: a lot like the smart folders found in OS X
• Editing can start immediately during importing of AVCHD and other media, switches silently to local media as it ingests
• Uses every available cpu cycle to keep things rendered. Also highly scalable. Will even work on a Macbook
• No interruption for rendering. No transcoding, EVERYTHING native. (incl DSLR footage–assume this means AVC)
• Presentation received a standing ovation!

Via macrumors.com.

SAN FRANCISCO — The survival of Apple beyond the 1980s comes down to a single piece of software, says Guy Kawasaki, bestselling author and Apple’s former chief evangelist. That single, miraculous piece of software — Aldus PageMaker — fueled a desktop publishing revolution, and saved Apple’s bacon in the process.

The comment came Tuesday during a highly entertaining keynote speech at the Ad:Tech conference here to promote Kawasaki’s new book, Enchantment. The book is a manual of persuasion in the mold of Dale Carnegie’s famous How to Win Friends & Influence People. (I’m reading it and will post a review soon.)

Gamers, quantify your frugality! It’s that time of year again: the Humble Indie Bundle has again launched, this time offering Mac gamers the choice of paying whatever they want for the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle, a four-pack of game from dev Frozenbyte that includes the gorgeous fantasy action game Trine, the two Shadowgrounds games, and a new platformer called Splot as a pre-order bonus.

As usual, you can pay what you want for the bundle, and the games will all not only work on the Mac, but also be cross-compatible with Linux and Windows. In addition, you can even divvy up your donation between developer Frozenbyte, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Child’s Play and the Humble guys themselves.

All told, the latest Humble Indie Bundle is $50 worth of gaming excellence for whatever you want to pay… which, for Mac users as of writing, is hovering on average at around $6.19. I expect you to do better.

What’s better than a free app? Yeah, two of them — so today’s Daily Freebie is actually a twofer. Both are from MacPhun, developer of the PhotoStudio app we reviewed yesterday.

The first is a free version of PerfectPhoto, macPhun’s iPhone photo editor. It may lack the fancy filters of the paid version, but it comes with all the darkroom tools you’ll need to edit photos on the iPhone: adjust exposure, contrast, color temp, shadows, crop images and even a posterize and vintage effect. Frankly, you’re going to be using PhotoStudio for the effects anyway.

The second app, Cartoonatic, (that’s a screencap from its App Store page, above) is where the real fireworks are, though — it’ll let you transform a video clip with nine different, wild-looking effects, with live previews while recording, the ability to play around with the clip’s speed, add a soundtrack from your music library and all kinds of other neat stuff. That’s a lot of wow for free.

In November of last year, Brazilian billionaire Elke Batista declared that he wanted Apple to abandon Foxconn and China and come build iPads in Brazil.

Well, looks like he got half his wish: while Foxconn remains involved, future iPads may soon be built in Brazil thanks to a $12 billion investment by that company in the South American nation.

Apple’s resisted consumers’ calls to equip future iPhones and iPads with build in SD and microSD card slots thus far, making getting your photos to your iDevice a matter of either picking up a Camera Connection Kit (which only works on iPad) or accomplishing the same feat more indirectly through iTunes.

At CES, much beloved memory card makers Eye-Fi unveiled a cure all for these woes: a new feature coming soon to their line of WiFi-equipped SD cards called “Direct Mode” which allows the card to broadcast itself as its own WiFi network, made accessible to any iOS mobile device just by loading up an official app.

It’s taken a few months, but Direct Mode is now here. If the prospect of slurping your SLR’s photos or videos onto your iPhone or iPad wirelessly appeals, you’ve got two options. If you’ve got an existing Eye-Fi X2 card, you should be able to invoke the new mode just by installing a firmware update, due out next week along with the appropriate iOS app. Otherwise, the new Eye-Fi Mobile X2 card with 8GB of storage and Direct Mode bake in will go on sale on April 17th for the price of $79.99

At an event in London today, HTC unveiled a brand new addition to its ever growing smartphone lineup called the Sensation 4G. Boasting 4G data connectivity, a Super LCD screen, and a dual-core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon CPU, the Sensation is a worthy adversary for the iPhone 4. So how do the two compare?

We’ve created a great little comparison that compares all of the main specifications, helping you decide which device deserved your hard earned cash. Check it out after the break!

Best Buy hasn’t exactly been playing fair cricket when it comes to distributing iPad 2s to customers. First, Best Buy admitted they were holding back iPad 2s, supposedly for an “upcoming promotion” but rumored to actually be to manipulate their sales quota numbers. Strike one.

Now we’ve got strike two. A reader writing to Crunchgear says a Best Buy manager effectively blackmailed him into buying a $109 rip-off Best Buy protection plan before he would sell him an iPad 2.

You can just imagine the teens huddled in this iDevice-compatible park shelter listening to music. The shelter has imbedded wireless speakers that work with the iPod, iPhone and iPad. The solar-powered gathering place does not work at night, officials say.

It’s part of a park renovation project in Carterton, Oxfordshire. The £200,000 project (about US$326,000), in part funded by city coffers and in part by grants, will renew the Alvescot Road Recreation Ground.

Aside from offering a spot to sit around and scowl protected from the drizzle, there is also a play area with jungle gyms, swings and a zip-wire.

We weren’t able to find out other details about the shelter, but will update when we do.

Via Carterton Rec, Oxford Times

We start off with three hardware deals, one for the desktop, one for the laptop and one for the on-the-go. First up is a Core i3 iMac running at 3.06GHz with a 22-inch screen. Next is a 1.4GHz MacBook Air, along with several other Airs from the Apple Store. We wrap the spotlight up with a deal on a 32GB iPod touch with FaceTime for $232.

Along the way, we also check out other hardware and add-ons, ranging from the Xserve to a 27-inch Cinema Display. As usual, details on these and many other items can be found at the CoM “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Although Apple is yet to officially announce its sales for the fiscal second quarter, one analyst already has high expectations. The quick take-away: more record iPhone sales and overwhelming demand for the iPad 2 versus the original Apple tablet. In terms of sales numbers, expect 7 million for the iPad and 17 million for the iPhone.

RBC Capital Markets’ analyst Mike Abramsky told investors Tuesday he believes Apple will have sold 2 million to 3 million iPad 2 units, higher than the Wall Street consensus. In a survey RBC conducted in March, 28 percent of the people asked said they plan to buy an iPad 2 – 40 percent higher than an earlier survey gauging the consumer intentions toward the first-generation iPad.

According to several reports from various sources recently, it seems there could be a nasty ‘virus’ lurking in dodgy internet adverts that wipes your iOS device when you tap on them. Users searching for jailbreak and unlock methods on their devices are the ones currently at risk.

When performing a search for these hacks on an iOS device, false adverts are returned that claim to unlock your device for free. Tapping on them takes you to a webpage that shows an animation lasting 10 to 15 seconds, followed by a message that says: “DOWNLOAD UNLOCK 2 NOW FREE.” By this point the device is completely wiped of all your information.

Apple’s long-awaited CDMA iPhone should pay off handsomely, to the tune of $9 billion in 2012, one analyst estimates. The Cupertino, Calif. tech giant should garner $6 billion in the U.S. and half that in markets such as China, India and Japan.

JP Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz told investors Tuesday Apple has a “multi-billion dollar revenue opportunity” capable of keeping the company at above-market growth for up to the next two years. Moskowitz expects Verizon will sell 10 million CDMA iPhones next year, a near mirror of the carrier’s own projected 11 million units sold for 2011. The CDMA iPhone was Verizon’s best-selling handset in history.

A  Texas Sheriff credits a new crime tip app for making a major drug bust.

We wrote just last week about whether the Eye on Laredo app was more “neighborhood watch 2.0,” as local law enforcement was pitching it, or digital vigilante.

The app has apparently already hit paydirt. Someone using it reported “suspicious activity” in a Blue Jeep on Mines Road (which looks to be a fairly deserted area) and tipped off police.

Police noticed the same blue Jeep at a convenience store about 12 miles from the sighting. They also spotted some large bundles in the cab, which turned out to be nearly 400 pounds marijuana, valued at $200,000.

Via Pro 8 News

Jailbreaking your iPhone is easy enough to do as long as you don’t mind staying parked at an earlier firmware until the Dev Team gets a new hack out, but unlocking your iPhone to work with any carrier is a lot more complicated. What if you want to just unlock your iPhone once and be done with it forever? A new company called CutYourSim claims that they can just do that, offering permanent unlocking of any GSM iPhone for a one-time fee of $169.99.

How are they offering this service? As near as anyone can tell, it looks like CutYourSim has someone on the inside of AT&T who is unlocking iPhones for them on the sly.

Intel, watching the torch pass from laptops to tablets, is determined to make 2011 “about becoming relevant,” as its marketing manager told one reporter Monday. The chip maker is taking another whack at finding an answer to the iPad, launching the Oak Trail chip designed specifically for tablets.

Although Intel doesn’t plan to launch its new 45nm Atom chip until May, the company says 35 tablets are set to use the component. However, some question whether the Santa Clara, Calif.-based firm can make a dent in the existing tablet marketplace. While Intel CEO Paul Otellini told employees he is “very optimistic about our opportunities in tablets,” Gartner’s research head Michael Gartenberg warned tablet users “seem to be quite happy with the Arm architecture.”

Thanks largely in party to the debut of Epic Games’ cross-platform Unreal Engine on iOS through titles like Unreal Citadel and Infinity Blade, games on the iPhone and iPad have finally reached a level of graphical excellence indistinguishable to the untrained eye from many of the last’s year’s console games.

Dream:scape is a new iOS title currently pending approval with Apple that aims to add to that rich pedigree, not with another action game, but with what appears to be an adventure game. Not much is known about Dream:scape, short of the impressive trailer above, and this blurb of a description:

The player takes on the persona of a coma patient unlocking his past by exploring the dreamscape of his memories. As the player explores the huge open world, memories are unlocked. These are represented by cut-scenes, featuring audible dialog, and diary entries, which the player reads in-game via a 3-D representation of a leather-bound book. The player must determine which areas to explore so as to find and unlock the story.

It certainly looks gorgeous, and the plot seems suitably Silent Hill style for my liking, but I’m a bit worried about the voice acting, which seems just a spot too amateurish for a game that is largely supposed to be about exploring relationships and memories of loved ones in the past. Then again, the developer seems to be a small one, so I’m more than willing to give him a break.

Like many of JBL’s speaker docks, the On Air Speaker Dock looks less like a piece of stereo equipment than a Sharper Image Anti-Ionization Purifier repurposed by the BBC into the helmet for one of Doctor Who’s more disposable villains, but look beyond the strange styling and you’ll see JBL’s first AirPlay-capable dock.

Now shipping to BestBuys and Apple Stores around the country, JBL’s willingness to write a check for AirPlay’s licensing fees mean you should be able to stream your iTunes library directly to the dock no matter where you are. The unorthodox design is meant to fill the room with 360-degree sound; otherwise, you’ll find a color LCD, digital FM radio, inbuilt alarm clock and more.

$349.99, though. AirPlay or not, that’s way more than any Doctor Who helmet should ever cost.

There’s few things in life less annoying than having to charge your Apple Wireless Keyboard or Magic Trackbad once or twice a year. In fact, on the annoyance scale, it’s well below other marginal annoyances like having to sharpen your pencil when it gets dull, or floss out a popcorn kernel after a night at the movies.

Still, if you’re willing to spend $60 on a gadget just to avoid life’s smallest and most inconsequential inconveniences, there’s the Mobee Magic Bar… an aluminum sleeve that plugs into your local USB slot and which will charge your Magic Trackpad or Wireless Keyboard’s battery through induction.

A pretty slick solution to a pretty mundane problem, no? Sadly, these won’t start shipping until the end of June, so you’ll have to wait… but then again, the chances of your keyboard batteries running down before then are pretty small anyway.

[via HardMac and Gizmodo]

Amazon’s goal is to have a Kindle in every pair of hands in America. That’s Apple’s goal with the iPad too, but the difference is, Apple wants to do it while remaining profitable on the hardware. Amazon’s willing to give that up if it means they can make boatloads of cash on the ebooks.

That’s why Amazon releases free Kindle software for every platform capable of running text on a screen, and that’s why — if you plot the Kindle’s price decline over the past couple of years — you can see that it is on track to eventually be free in November of this year, at least to Amazon Prime customers.

For the rest of the consumers out there, though? Amazon’s now working on a new plan: ad-supported Kindles. And while users don’t get much of a discount off of the regular Kindle now (just $25 off the $139 entry-level Kindle price to have your e-reader “sponsored” with advertisements on the homescreen and in the screensavers), I expect that the savings will drop to free soon enough.

Amazon’s plan has never really been to build the best e-reader, although the Kindle’s an excellent device. Their plan has been to make a good enough e-reader cheaply enough that they can just give one away to anyone who wants one.

Steve Jobs is keen to bring wireless syncing to iPods this year, and carbon fiber may be the key.

Following the news that Apple has just hired a leading carbon fiber expert, we can reveal that the company has been testing Wi-Fi syncing in iPods for the past two years.

Getting large libraries of music and movies to synchronize wirelessly over WiFi hasn’t been easy, according to a source close to the company who asked to remain anonymous. But Steve Jobs himself sees it as key to updating the aging devices, which are becoming increasingly obsolete in the iPhone/iPad era.

“Jobs is pushing hard to get WiFi syncing into the next-generation of iPods,” says our source.

Visitors to The Establishment Hotel in Sydney, Australia, can now enjoy access to an iPad 2 during their stay after the hotel recently deployed one of the devices to each and every one of its 31 rooms. The iPads are free to use and include a selection of movies and music including the hotel’s welcome video. There’s also a collection of apps that provide access to international news in addition to travel and restaurant guides.

Justin Hemmes, Merivale’s CEO, said the company is looking at ways in which it can further integrate technology into its hotels:

Now that we have the hardware, we are only limited by our own imagination. Well, maybe also by the software developers’ abilities but seriously, we will be looking at ways in which we can integrate this technology further into the whole guest experience

As well as the iPad, guests also get an AppleTV and surround sound system in their room which enables them to enjoy the iPad’s content on the big screen over AirPlay. If I wasn’t in Sydney, I wouldn’t want to leave the room!

[via MacStories]

Despite recent speculation that a third generation iPad will launch later this year, component makers in China have ruled out the possibility of two iPads in twelve months, and claimed that although Apple has released its plans for a higher resolution tablet, the device is still in the “initial planning stage.”

Sources said they do not see the iPad 2 as a transitional product, and pointed out that the launch of an iPad 3 so soon after the release of the second generation device would simply cut off interest in the iPad 2. Component makers confirmed that they are yet to receive any notice for next generation iPad components, and with such a strong demand for the iPad 2, an update won’t appear anytime soon.

Touch panel makers also revealed that Apple may be considering an AMOLED panel for the iPad 3, which would be a “great risk” for the Cupertino company since AMOLED technologies are currently largely controlled by Samsung. It may mean Apple could no longer have priority over the key technologies used in its devices, and meeting demand for the device could prove even more difficult.

[via DigiTimes]

A new service from Piecable, called Piecable Viewer, allows you to run iOS applications in your web browser. They’re not just watered down demos either; they’re complete applications – just like you’d get from the App Store – that run on Flash with just one additional line of code.

The service provides developers with a great way of giving people access to their applications for testing, without having to worry about iTunes redemption codes or the UDID limit Apple places on developer accounts. All they have to do is sign up to the Piecable service and choose one of its tiered pricing plans, add an extra line of code to their application, and upload it to the service. They receive a link to the app on the web which can be sent out to agencies, clients, organizations, and the press, enabling the recipient to play around with the application in their web browser.

Thanks to its front-facing camera, the iPad 2 is capable of producing a glasses-free 3D effect using head-tracking technology. Jeremie Francone and Laurence Nigay from the Laboratory of Informatics of Grenoble at the EHCI Research Group have used this technology, along with some really basic applications, to show off what the iPad 2 is capable of when it comes to 3D.

We track the head of the user with the front facing camera in order to create a glasses-free monocular display. Such spatially-aware mobile display enables to improve the possibilities of interaction. It do not use the accelerometers and relies only on the front camera.

The video below demonstrates how the concept works, and I think it’s really impressive. I can’t wait to see how developers might use head tracking to create a 3D gaming experience.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBQQEcfkHoE