Cult of Mac

You just installed Snow Leopard. Now what?

Here’s the best 10 tips and tricks we found for putting the beast to best use.

Multimedia Messaging Service is coming to the iPhone on September 25, AT&T just announced in a press release. The service will be available at no additional cost to iPhone customers with a text messaging plan (which start at about $20). But there’s still no word on tethering (which allows your computer to access the internet via the iPhone’s data connection).

The MMS announcement comes as AT&T draws fire for its slow, unreliable data network. MMS is likely to put more strain on the network, but AT&T claims it is ready.

“The unique capabilities and high usage of the iPhone’s multimedia capabilities required us to work on our network MMS architecture to carry the expected record volumes of MMS traffic and ensure an excellent experience from Day One. We appreciate your patience as we work toward that end.”

We’re riding the leading edge of smartphone growth that’s resulted in an explosion of traffic over the AT&T network. Wireless use on our network has grown an average of 350 percent year-over-year for the past two years, and is projected to continue at a rapid pace in 2009 and beyond. The volume of smartphone data traffic the AT&T network is handling is unmatched in the wireless industry. We want you to know that we’re working relentlessly to innovate and invest in our network to anticipate this growth in usage and to stay ahead of the anticipated growth in data demand, new devices and applications for years to come.

The MMS service will allow iPhone users to send and receive messages containing images, audio, video. MMS is widely available in other countries, and can be enabled on many iPhones with a simple hack.

Tethering is not likely to be announced for several months as AT&T builds out its network with 2,100 cell towers and 100,000 new backhaul links.

The cruel but funny People of Walmart website is looking for a developer to create an iPhone app for the website.

If you’re interested in making an iPhone app to make fun of misfits — and possibly get sued for publishing their unauthorized photographs — contact People of Walmart at [email protected].

Surely you’ve seen the viral website, which publishes candid-camera style pictures of the various meth tweakers, rednecks, and other sundry weirdos that frequent the nation’s largest retailer, along with cruelly funny captions.

Just a few weeks old, the site is often down due to server overload. The developers are also looking for a new host that can cope with the traffic.

Via QuickPwn.

Now you can create tilt-shift photographs on your iPhone thanks to a new app called TiltShift Generator.

Available now for 99c (the price rises to $2.99 in two weeks), the app makes those fake miniature pictures so popular on the internet.

Created by developer Takayuki Fukatsu, the app works by selectively blurring parts of the picture to simulate a very narrow depth of field, making the subject look like a miniature.

The software can be used to create other effects, like vintage-looking photos.

If you want to try it out before plunking down your hard-earned 99c, the developer also offers a free online web app, and a free Adobe Air version. More sample pictures after the jump.

Link to TiltShift Generator on iTunes.

Developer’s website.

Logitech today introduced two new ways to stream your DRM-free iTunes Plus and other music collections. The Squeezebox Radio is a standalone device which streams iTunes, Napster or Sirius. Using a six-button navigation system, and the unit’s color screen, you can flip through album art, track and station listings, along with visualizers, the company announced.

The 5.12-inch by 8.66-inch by 5.04-inch radio also serves as an alarm clock with a display that automatically brightens depending on lighting situations.

The Squeezebox Radio offers “clear sound with minimal distortion” Logitech claims. The company said the unit has a 3/4-inch high-definition, soft-dome tweeter, plus a 3-inch high-power woofer. A 3.5mm headphone jack is also included.

Sales of Sony’s MP3 Walkman outsold iPods for the first time in Japan for the first time since 2005.

Research firm BCN Inc. found that Sony’s share of the portable music market share rose to 43 percent last week, creeping above Apple’s 42.1 percent.

The uptick in sales is attributed to the W Series pictured above, which sells for under 10,000 yen ($108).   Sony’s answer to the iPod shuffle is a 2G wearable headset that has generally met with favorable reviews.

But Sony MP3 players might not be as big in Japan as they seem. As Bloomberg notes, the jump can be at least in part attributed to people ditching iPods for the iPhone, so Apple wins either way.

Via  Bloomberg

If you’re searching for a good deal on MacBook Pro laptops, today may be your day. We have two e-tailers vying for your attention. All are Core 2 Duos, with the screen size ranges from 15-inches to 17-inches. Philips also has a $50 iPod universal remote while TigerDirect.com offers this cool Photo ball/alarm clock and dock.

For details on these bargains and others (like a foldable USB keyboard), visit CoM’s Daily Deals page.

Update 2: Thanks to Cult of Mac reader Gus, who noted that certain websites were screwing up his Photoshop. I started playing around with Safari and noticed that sites with embedded Flash were causing the cursor issue. I then recalled Adobe UK PR bod Emma Wilkinson’s tweet from earlier today:

Info: Snow Leopard ships w/earlier version Flash Player, recommend all update to latest, more secure which supports SL https://bit.ly/yP2VA

Sure enough, after installing the Flash update, the problem seems to be gone.

I’ve been a quite vocal critic of Adobe of late, but I’m damn impressed with the company today—it looks like someone is listening, and that’s always a good thing.

Update: Kudos to Adobe. Shortly after this post went up, a ‘Senior Software Product Quality Specialist – Photoshop’ was in touch, and we’re now involved in a discussion to try and figure out what’s going on. Also, Nack is keeping people up to date regarding some of the reported CS3 and CS4 problems.

With any new operating system comes a certain amount of pain, but the transition to Snow Leopard has been relatively easy for me. I’ve had one incredibly nasty hard crash that locked up the Mac, painted vertical stripes down the screen and looped about a quarter-second of audio at maximum volume (it was like the iMac decided to do its own really small horror film), but nothing bad before or since.

A minor exception is Photoshop CS4, which on the face of it works well, but is becoming increasingly quirky. Two bugs I’ve so far discovered that have hampered my workflow quite significantly are: 1) Photoshop deciding to ignore drags from Finder to its Dock icon—half the time, it opens just one of multiple documents; 2) insanely useful Photoshop custom cursors vanishing when the mouse button is held down.

For the latter of those things, I made a quick video (with an exasperated tone of voice). If anyone knows what the hell causes this and how to fix the bug, please post in the comments. (Note the hardware in this case is a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac.)

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

Now here’s something unexpected. Sophos security consultant Graham Cluley has a warning for everyone who’s just upgraded their computer to run Snow Leopard: go check your Flash plugin version as soon as possible, because you might find that your OS upgrade simultaneously downgraded your plugin. (Assuming your plugin was up-to-date to begin with; full explanation in the video above.)

You can check your plugin version at this page on Adobe’s site.

While the Vimeo Flash video player Graham’s using is not going to cause any harm to your computer, you can’t be certain that Flash content elsewhere on the web will be as safe.

How so? I called Graham this morning and asked him.

Coinciding with Steve Jobs return to the public eye next week, Penguin Portfolio is reissuing my book Inside Steve’s Brain with a new chapter about how Apple will cope without its dynamic CEO.

Published in April 2008, Inside Steve’s Brain was a New York Times best-seller and an international hit (translated into 15 languages and a best-seller in Brazil and Italy). But the book was written before Jobs’ recent liver transplant, so the publisher asked me to update it for a second edition.

Jobs will take the stage next week at Apple’s special press event to show off new holiday iPods to the press. He has to: If he doesn’t show up Sept. 9, there’ll be a media shitstorm and Apple’s stock will tank.

Jobs’ last public appearance happened exactly a year ago. Last Sept. 9, he presided over a similar iPod event at the same venue. Bloomberg had accidentally published Jobs’ obituary, and when he appeared onstage he flashed a slide with Mark Twain’s famous line: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

Indeed. One liver transplant later, Jobs is still with us, thank God. But there will be a time when Apple will have to do without its supreme leader, and as I explain in the new chapter of Inside Steve’s Brain, the company will be both royally fucked and totally OK when the inevitable happens.

Apple is expected to announce the availability of pre-cut ringtones made from popular music tracks at next week’s media event on September 9, according to a report Wednesday at CNET News.

Despite being able to easily make their own ringtones out of any mp3 file for free, consumers have in the past shown a willingness to pay as much as $3 to hear a few seconds of a favorite song when receiving an incoming phone call.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment for the report and no details are available about what the company might charge for ringtones, but the formerly booming, high-margin source of music industry revenues saw a 24% decline from 2007 – 2008, according to a recent report from the research firm SNL Kagan.

With many expecting little more than some tweaks to iTunes and a possible refresh of the iPod line next week, Apple appears to have done a good job of setting the stage for a blockbuster announcement of some kind.

On the other hand, Apple can’t be expected to put a ding in the universe with every single press conference; maybe what we’ll get next week will only amount to “Hey, Look – Ringtones!”

Duracell’s cheap and cheerful little rechargeable battery pack is “perfect,” Gizmodo says in a nice little review of the new gadget.

Just released, Duracell’s $20 Instant Charger is good for about half a charge of an iPhone, or a full charge of an iPod nano.

“Duracell’s Instant Charger is a perfectly executed little gadget,” Gizmodo says.

The site has seen plenty of pricey chargers with all the bells and whistles, which are usually superfluous. Gizmodo is charmed by the Instant Charger’s purity: it’s basically a rechargeable litium ion battery hooked to a USB port, and that’s it.

You plug in your own charging cables, so it’s good for iPhones, iPods, digital cameras, Bluetooth headsets and any other gadget that comes with a USB cable.

The Instant Charger ‘s bigger brother, the $50 Powerhouse Charger, stores enough juice to charge an iPhone 3G 1.2 times, or an iPod nano 4 times, Giz says. But it isn’t as compelling as the Instant Charger, which is perfectly simple and cheap.

Searching the iTunes app store is much easier when you’re not using the iTunes app store. Launching today, uquery.com aims to be the vehicle for the app discovery process.

The site uses its own system of algorithms called “AppRank” to make it easy and fast to find the right app for certain tasks. Search results appear in a easy-to-navigate center column along with options to refine your search.

Unlike the iTunes App Store, you can use your browser’s “find in page” command to pinpoint your search term in the search results. It’s the little things.

At the moment, uquery.com appears to generate search results from the full text app descriptions. As the site gains visitors, search queries and tweets, the “AppRank” system will improve its ability to make the app discovery process more intuitive.

RadTech today doubled the usefulness of its AutoPower on-the-go iPhone and iPod charger, offering two USB ports. The new device also nearly halved the price, to $10 from $17 for the single-port version. The single-port option does include a 30-pin retractable cable.

The 3.3-inch by 1.3 inch AutoPower includes fuseless recharging with a sensor to avoid hardware damage. RadTech says the 5V 500mA recharger is “not for 1st -3rd Generation iPod.”

[Via iPodnn and RadTech]

The camera world is all aflutter over Panasonic’s Lumix GF1 digital camera. Along with questions about how the device measures up to the rival Olympus E-P1, the question on everyone’s lips is the GF1 a DSLR wannabe?

It seems the question has some substance. The “R” in DSLR requires a mirror. However, the GF1, the latest in Panasonic’s Micro Four Thirds standard, is “mirror-free,” according to the company.

The British security firm Intego has published a security memo that provides a clear and detailed view of Apple’s new XProtect anti-virus system in Snow Leopard.

There are several interesting tidbits: Apple’s new XProtect system cannot recognize all the variants of the Trojans it is supposed to protect against, for example.

Also, the XProtect system does not spot Trojans hidden inside .mpkg files downloaded from the internet, a major weakness, according to Intego. (Apple’s installer recognizes two types of files — .pkg files for simple packages, and .mpkg files that contain multiple packages to be installed.)

The memo is patently self-serving — Intego sells several anti-virus and privacy packages for the Mac — but nonetheless provides a clear and detailed view of what Apple’s new XProtect system does — and doesn’t do.

The full memo after the jump.

Apple, you guys always make me smile! I love you and all your products!

I love surprises too! Those cute little tricks you discover when you’re using Apple stuff! Great!

And I’ve just discovered the best surprise yet!.

Vonage’s App has been approved for the iPhone/iPod Touch and the company is looking for volunteers to help beta test the app.

“Interested in Vonage app beta? Few spots left. Follow me & send your email address via DM. Lots of interest..cannot guarantee spot.” says the official Vonage Twitter feed.

The offer was posted at about 7.40 AM PST and should still be good — for a little while at least.

The Vonage app will allow customers to make cheap VOIP calls on the iPhone — but over Wi-Fi only, like the similar Skype app. AT&T bans VOIP on its 3G cellular network.

Today’s deals include iPods starting at $39 (a shuffle), soft-touch iPhone cases from iFrogz for $12 and MacBook Pro laptops starting at $999.

Details on these bargains and many more can be found at the CoM “Daily Deals” page.

Way way back in the mists of ancient history, I owned a Palm device, and I loved the little fella.

One of my favourite apps for the Palm was AvantGo (now defunct) – a huge database of free newspaper and magazine content that the device would download every time you synced the Palm with your desktop computer.

I used to spend long train journeys catching up with news from the BBC, Wired, and a bunch of other publications. Most of it was full text, there were no ads (not that I can remember, anyway – this was a long time ago now), it was fast and quick and easy. Superb.

This week I noticed Time magazine’s new app, and started poking around elsewhere in the news section of the App Store. In particular, I wanted to see what the UK media were up to.

We’re big fans of the unauthorized doc “Welcome to Macintosh” — a true love letter to the history of Apple and its community.

Now this indie film is available on iTunes.

Well, it’s also available on Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Netflix etc., but we love the idea that what is a totally handmade film (tagline: “a documentary for the rest of us”) is now worthy of being sold by Apple.

In what’s turning out to be a busy few weeks for the team at Bare Bones, their information manager app Yojimbo has just been bumped up to 2.0. The new version is a 20 dollar upgrade for owners of older versions, is Snow Leopard compatible, and has this spectacular new icon.

There are a lot of Apple-inspired confections out there, but this apple pie with a logo at the center by a photographer in Uruguay who goes by Miss Gong looks almost too yummy to eat. (Not sure if the reverse logo was intentional or just turned round in the photo).

Imagine inviting your Mac user group over and serving this apple pie for dessert…

Mobile phone gadget maker Parrot Tuesday introduced one of the few in-dash car stereos meant for iPhone users. The RKi8400 ($400 in the U.S.) was unveiled at the Frankfurt Auto Show.

“All iPhone functions — music, navigation of the music directory and playlists and Bluetooth phone capabilities — have been adapted for in-car use,” said Henri Seydoux, Parrot founder and CEO.