Cult of Mac

My beloved truck used to be behind the times. The factory-installed stereo had a cassette deck. Remember them? No iPod/iPhone connection and worse, no hands-free cellphone.

But now its got a shiny Sony Xplod aftermarket stereo, which features both iPod and Bluetooth connectivity.

There’s a lot of replacement stereos, but the Xplod has the easiest Bluetooth setup ever, and it always makes a seamless connection with my iPhone. It just works, every time, period. Now I’m always chatting it up in while I’m driving, and I love streaming music via Bluetooth. I should have got one years ago.

Full review after the jump.

Even though I own both Adobe’s Lightroom and Apple’s Aperture, I use Lightroom because of the advanced development module, the ability to paint on different exposures, and non-destructive editing. I had very high hopes for Lightroom 3, which Adobe just released in beta, and am pleased to say that with one pretty significant exception, I’m very pleased.

Tutorial Videos and more comments after the jump

We’ve written about all sorts of ways to charge your iPhone or iPod. Except solar devices, all chargers have one thing in common: they use wires. That might be ready to change as Powermat announces it will start shipping its wireless charger. The Powermat uses inductive coupling to transfer energy to any device placed on the mat.

There are two versions: the Powermat Home & Office (which looks something close to a skateboard without wheels) and the folding Powermat Portable. Both versions let you recharge up to three devices at least as quickly as the traditional plug-in rechargers.

Today is the 8th birthday of the iPod and yes, though it hasn’t reached even a decade of life, it’s already the object of several museum exhibits.

Back in 2007, London’s Science Museum put out a national search for a first-gen iPod — CoM reader Joe Weiss answered the call.

Last year, his donated first gen iPod, together with all the original packaging plus unopened earbuds and software to the museum for posterity.

See it in the museum, find out what firewire had to do with it and whether he regrets giving over his iPod after the jump.

We close out the week with an abundance of apps, most courtesy of Apple’s App Store. Today we have two (count’em, two) free apps offers. Along the way, we check out some iTunes bargains and bargains on hardware, including iMacs. We round out our daily deals with an assortment of headphones and holders for your iPhone and iPod.

For details on these and other bargains (such as the Fantom Triple 1TB external HD), take a look at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.

A huge iPod touch billboard is at the center of a Boston controversy, with claims a mayor’s aide helped a political contributor install the ad over the wishes of city regulators. Despite being called “illegal” in 2007 by the Massachusetts Outdoor Advertising Board, a 13,750 banner ad touting the iPod remains in place.

The latest chapter includes a report suggesting Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino endorsed the billboard despite what the Boston Globe calls a “usual discouragement of new billboards.” A campaign aide has admitted helping a top political donor gain approval for the advertisement.

Apple’s Boot Camp reportedly will support Microsoft’s newly-released Windows 7 operating system by year’s end, but Macs produced in 2006 may be out of luck. The Cupertino, Calif. company informed retailers Boot Camp for Mac OS X Snow Leopard will exclude Windows 7 support for some iMacs, MacBook Pros and Mac Pros.

In a memo, the company announced the following models “will not be supported for use with Windows 7 using Boot Camp”:

Psystar, already defending copyright infringement claims from Apple, Thursday announced it would sell software directly to consumers allowing PCs to run Mac OS X, including Apple’s Snow Leopard. The $50 software is in addition to selling to to OEMs.

The Psystar software supposedly supports systems using the Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, i7 or Xeon Nehalem.

The first iPod launched on Oct. 23, 2001.  It had a scroll wheel, cost $399, could store 1,000 songs and looks like a yoga block compared to later models.

This  promo for the first-gen iPod is charmingly dated (only 6.5 ounces, over 10 hours of battery life! ) — though there must be a portrait of Jonathan Ive in an attic somewhere, he looks the same as he talks about it as one of his “most personal designs” at Apple.

Also stumping for the product, among others,  are Moby (“I’m having a hard time getting my head around the fact that you can transfer a whole album on this in 10 seconds.”) and Steve Harwell from Smash Mouth (“You’ve got your own record store on this damn thing.”)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e84SER_IkP4

Unlike an 8-year-old human, an iPod that age doesn’t enjoy an increase in stamina or conversation at an almost adult level.

Mine (the best Christmas present I got the year it came out) is still in the graveyard drawer of iPods I Have Loved, however.
What do you remember most about your first iPod?

Anyone got a first gen that still works?

Wow, the launch of Windows 7 on Thursday has prompted Apple to trot out three new ads making fun of Microsoft’s new system.

The big shocker is that they are actually pretty funny. I LOLed at the last line in the “PC Wars” ad above; a line delivered by Justin Long. Yeah Justin Long.

The “Broken Promises” is also pretty good. Watch it – and the third ad, “Teeter Tottering” — after the jump.

That’s really, really hard to argue against. Well done, Chiat-Day.

You can never be rich enough or thin enough, and you can never have enough storage.

I’ve been playing with Iomega’s brand new StorCenter ix2-200, a 4TB network-attached storage/home server that totally kicks NAS!

Not only is it a nice big target for Time Machine backups, it’s also an iTunes server and a Bittorrent machine. It plays nice with the Mac, and is dead easy to set up and use.

Full review after the jump.

Image: David Hobby, Strobist.com

I am a “Fashionable Photographer”, meaning I own a ridiculously expensive camera, that I barely know how to use, and possess a virtually limitless budget for gear which are little more than fashion accessories to my lifestyle.

Yet despite this I am not the sort of dude that is likely to lay down one hundred and forty bucks on a set of DVD that I could just watch for free on account of a friend loaning them to me.

And yet I did, and I’ll tell you why, after the jump.

Here’s a video of the opening of Microsoft’s first retail store in Scottsdale, Ariz. As the video proves, Microsoft’s business plan is to shamelessly copy Apple, right down to the whooping and high-five ritual when the store first opens. If you blur your eyes slightly, you’re inside an Apple store. From the wood floors and tables to the staffs’ brightly-colored tshirts. Shameless.

In case you missed it first time around, here’s our totally unbiased review of Windows 7.

There’s nothing new under the sun – particularly solar chargers. We’ve written about flexible solar chargers, solar chargers built into speakers and solar chargers shaped like trees. Now comes i.Tech and their SolarCharger 906.

This is your lucky day if you are looking for a good deal on either an iMac, MacBook or the previous version of a Mac mini. We have multiple offers on iMacs, ranging from 24″ 2.66GHz to 24″ 3.066GHz. Also, today’s deals include a couple 13″ MacBooks. If you aren’t looking for the latest mini desktops, Apple has a deal on a previous version of the system.

For details on these and other bargains (like the Boynq iCube II), check out CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.

A cheap shot, I know, but this is a real picture of the crowd that turned up last night at Fry’s in Renton, Washington, to be among the first to buy Microsoft’s new operating system. Renton is a town just outside Seattle, where Microsoft is headquartered. Photo by the AP.

For comparison, hit the jump for a pic of the line for Apple’s Snow Lepoard in San Francisco earlier this year.

[Nokia Complaint]

The demo gods shone on Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer this morning as he showed off Windows 7 to the Today Show’s Matt Lauer.  

The demo went with nary a hitch, even though he didn’t really “demo” any features — he just talked about how Windows 7 is “faster,” “cleaner” and “snappier.” The Sony touchscreen machine does look pretty cool though.  

He isn’t afraid that the iPhone will soon make PCs obsolete, he told Lauer, because people want different-sized screens for different tasks. And he’s not jealous of Apple’s cool image because nine out of 10 PCs sold in the U.S. run Windows.  

Windows 7 goes on sale today. Watch the video below.

Via Methodshop.

iPhones comprised nearly three out of every four new cell phones activated with 3G and a QWERTY keyboard, according to AT&T’s quarterly statement. The carrier said it activated 3.2 million iPhones during the quarter – up from 2.4 million iPhones last spring.

Overall, AT&T added 4.3 million “integrated devices” during the quarter out of a total of 81.6 million cell phone customers the carrier now claims. Although rival Verizon has yet to announce officially, the new AT&T numbers appear to narrow the gap to a 6.1 million advantage for Verizon. Verizon has recently launched an advertising salvo against the iPhone, promoting its Android 2.0-based ‘Droid’ expected to be introduced in early November.

Apple’s exclusive U.S. carrier also announced nearly 40 percent of those new iPhone customers are also new to AT&T, an increase from 33 percent reported earlier this year.

Talk is swirling around a 2008 Apple patent that could point to an ad-supported version of Mac OS X. The patent, credited to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, would permit embedding “one or more” ads in an operating system in exchange for goods or services.

“The presentation of the advertisement(s) can be made as part of an approach where the user obtains a good or service, such as an operating system, for free or at reduced cost,” Apple explained in the application.

When you actually get around to printing out the photos taken on your iPhone you can slide them into this handmade frame from Italy, which can go vertical or horizontal.
Made out of wood, so no one will try to swipe your pic, thinking it’s your phone.

It costs €15 ($22 circa) at phoneart.

The mystery object in Monday’s contest was a close-up of Apple Pro Speakers that CoM’s Lonnie Lazar snapped at a friend’s house where they’re part of a G4 iMac setup — for their size, he notes, “they actually sound great.”

Winner named after the jump.

If you’re a Douglas Adams fan, there’s a point fairly early on during iPhone ownership where you realise that you’re holding in your hands the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which is a nugget of information that hits you suddenly, rather like having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon, wrapped around a large gold brick. Naysayers might disagree, but Apple’s handheld enables access to a mind-boggling array of information, via a friendly interface, even if it doesn’t have the words ‘don’t panic’ inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

It therefore only seems fitting that the Hitchhiker’s Guide books are finding a happy home on Apple’s device, the latest of which is Eoin Colfer’s sixth Hitchhiker’s Guide novel, And Another Thing... In the US App Store, the novel is available in extended form, bundling the digital and audio versions, video clips, “bits of brilliance from the first five books”, and a bunch of other extras (App Store link).

Mindy Stockfield, VP of Marketing & Digital Media for Hyperion Books and Stephen Saiz, Director, Marketing for Digital Publishing, Disney Interactive Studios, gave us the low-down on the thinking behind the interactive version, and Eoin Colfer added his thoughts on getting the guide on your iPhone.