Cult of Mac

Apple is preparing to open its first store in Philadelphia, designed by the same firm responsible for its Fifth Avenue retail location in New York City, according to a Friday report.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company has signed a lease to move into a former restaurant situated to attract upscale shoppers and diners, reported the Macnn Website.

Although few details were provided, Apple would remake the Brasserie Perrier restaurant, using the Bohlin Cywinski Jackson architectural firm. The architects lead construction of many key Apple Stores in the U.S. and Great Britain.

Jake of 8bitjoystick.com: I use my old Mac SE as a door stopper. I know that’s blasphemy.

Rott3npeanut: I’ve turned my Mac into a PC so I can use it to record.

Giant Pangolin: I turned my Mac into a half-Mac, half-PC for only $159.

SAL-E: I use my old Mac as a grandfather clock

trevyn: I use my old Mac for running Indigo.

Come on, kids. Confess. What do you use your old Mac for? (No file/print/music servers please; something more interesting. The weirder the better.)

(CC pic from jake of 8bitjoystick.com)

There’s a thriving developer community here in the UK, but not such a thriving calendar of conferences and get-togethers.

The people behind MacDev2009 are hoping to change that with their event in April this year.

The speaker list is looking pretty good, including as it does the likes of Bill Dudney (creater of Riddle Racer and Dot Game, among others, Matt Gemmell, whose source code is found in an impressive variety of applications, and Fraser Speirs, (FlickrExport creator and the person who tipped me off about MacDev2009 in the first place).

There will be 11 hour-long sessions during the weekend, aimed at intermediate or advanced developers – not much at all for beginners. The session list looks very interesting. As Fraser puts it: “You really, really want to be at this one if you’re a Mac Developer.”

Here’s an iPhone stand on the opposite end of the spectrum of one I wrote about a few weeks ago.

Given the the snark I leveled at the ingeniously simple iBend, I’m just speechless about the Ped 3.

$40 from Thought Out

Soccer fans can keep up with Champion’s League games and Italy’s Serie A games on their iPhones thanks to a free web app developed in cooperation with Sky.

Stats, line-ups, photos and play-by-plays (for the moment, in Italian only) are available at https://i.sky.it/

The web app was developed by CEFRIEL, an ICT research hub for three Milan Universities, with a special eye to Apple-friendly design. One example: a list of team members can be rotated horizontally to a soccer field view which shows the positions they play.

A lot of men here in Italy used to walk around with transistor radios on Sundays listening to soccer games. Of late, these have been replaced by videophone services that allow fans ignore wives and friends while having a stroll. Although it would’ve been nice to be able to watch the games live, this lets sports fans keep on top of the score without ruining conversation over Sunday lunch.

Via Alfonso Fuggetta

You’ve got to love Japanese developer Yuki Yasoshima, whose free stopwatch app hit the iTunes AppStore this week. The version of the app on sale in the US store is “English,” but nowhere in the AppStore description is a word of it actually in English, just the same Japanese character information found on Yasoshima’s website, which is also in, yes, Japanese.

Now, that’s confidence in your product!

Fortunately, Big StopWatch is dead intuitive. Not to mention elegant, graphically boss and accurate to the 100th of a second.

If any of our Japanese-savvy readers want to take a shot at Yasoshima’s app description, it’s appended after the jump. Please let us know what we’re missing in comments.

In Apple rumor news having nothing to do with Steve Jobs’ health, a new Mac mini, featuring Intel’s Atom processor and the same Nvidia GeForce graphics processor found in the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros is said to be set for release in March, according to a report at Tom’s Hardware.

Citing an Nvidia partner as the source for the information, Tom’s reports the refreshed mini will pair Nvidia’s GeForce 9400 graphics processor with Intel’s dual-core 1.6 GHz Atom 330 processor and come to market around the time of CeBit, the world’s largest trade show for information and telecommunications technology, held annually in Hanover, Germany.

An update to Tom’s original report cites conflicting rumor talk out of AppleInsider suggesting that Apple may be using Nvidia’s Ion platform for an updated Apple TV, while acknowledging that no one really knows what’s going on for sure.

Tom’s Hardware via macrumors

As I’m preparing to spend away all of my money for a Macbook my classes require, I’m starting to think about protecting it. Not just protecting it, but protecting it in style. I like the custom made Macbook pouches on Etsy because I know that if I buy one, I’m probably never going to see someone with the same pouch. There may be a handful of others out there, but they’re so few and far between that you can consider your purchase unique.

fernfiddlehead has a barrage of Macbook envelopes that look excellent. There’s a simple pattern to their dimensions, but the fabrics available are vibrant and exciting:

This one has a matching power cable pouch.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who underwent pancreatic cancer surgery in 2004, may be headed back to the operating room to remove his pancreas, a doctor Thursday told financial publication Bloomberg.

Wednesday’s announcement that Jobs would leave for a six-month medical absence could indicate complications from the earlier surgery that removed portions of the pancreas, bile duct and small intestine, said Robert Thomas, head of surgery at Melbourne’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.

Although Thomas isn’t intimately familiar with the health condition of the Apple founder, the medical expert told Bloomberg that a “pancreatic leak” could require the pancreas to be removed and insulin to keep the Silicon Valley icon alive.

A couple of the larger media egos on the Apple beat got into a public spat on CNBC Wednesday, in the wake of Steve Jobs’ sudden decision to step aside from day-to-day operations in Cupertino.

Newsweek columnist Dan Lyons, who outed himself as the man behind the formerly wildly popular blog Fake Steve Jobs told CNBC’s Silicon Valley bureau chief, Jim Goldman, he’d been “played” and “punked” by his sources at Apple.

Goldman had previously reported, in the wake of Jobs’ decision to forgo the keynote address at Macworld 2009, that his sources had assured him the Apple CEO was fine and healthy and that the company’s decisions around Macworld had more to do with its long-term market strategy, and had not been guided by any concerns about Jobs’ health.

The clip is a bit of Kabuki theater that reminds one of nothing so much as children squabbling over a dying parent. It devolves, as so many of these things do, into a tempest of shouting and mewling. The conversation’s moderator sums it up nicely at the end, saying, “nobody can hear anything you guys are saying because you’re talking all over one another, and we’re out of time.”

Sad.

Via Cnet

Apple has dropped “Mac” from the name of its operating system, filing new trademark applications referring to just “OS X.” The move could be just the latest effort to rebrand the overall company.

The new trademark applications were filed in Trinidad and Tobago following the June 2008 Worldwide Developers Conference where Apple banners announced “OS X Leopard.”

The move may have been made to distinguish the company’s OS X Leopard computer operating system and the OS X used by Apple’s iPhone, according to Apple Insider.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs was forced to take a six-month medical leave following an ailment “preventing his body from absorbing food,” the New York Times reported online Wednesday.

The report, citing medical experts with knowledge of Jobs’ health, told the newspaper the founder of the Cupertino, Calif.-based company was not leaving due to a reappearance of pancreatic cancer which sidelined the Jobs in 2004.

Medical experts also told the executive to reduce stress, a factor that could inflame the illness, according to the Times.

Despite concern over what the six-month absence of Steve Jobs will mean for Apple, “sales will be unaffected,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said Wednesday.

Munster, known for his bullish outlook on Apple, told clients interim CEO Tim Cook will lead the company without a hiccup in product development.

Although Cook took temporary reins of Apple in 2004 when Jobs underwent cancer surgery, that episode lasted only one month, a fraction of the six-month absence Jobs’ announced Wednesday.

U.S. News & World Report named the “Get A Mac” campaign one of the best marketing jobs in recent times, putting it up there 13 killer campaigns including “What happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas” and “Will it Blend?”

Here’s why:

Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign, which launched in 2006, puts the hip, easygoing Mac against the hapless, problem-prone PC. “The message of these ads is clear,” says communications professor Stephen Marshall, author of Television Advertising That Works.

“Every one of them says, ‘Don’t be this guy.’ You don’t want to be the PC.” The TV ads also appeared online, and the company released a series of web-only ads to capitalize on consumer interest in the characters. People got the message–Mac’s market share grew by 42 percent.

Lesson: Create engaging characters in your online video to help grow an audience that’s receptive to your brand.

Interesting to see some praise outside the community, since the campaign has won several awards but hasn’t always been loved by ad critics.

Via US News

RBC Capital Markets Thursday downgraded Apple to ‘underperform,’ also slashing the stock’s target price to $70 from $125.

The analyst firm also told clients the percent of people who say they expect to buy a Mac or iPhone over the next three months slipped in January.

Just 28 percent of people responding to a January RBC/Changewave survey reported they would buy a Mac laptop, down from 33 percent in Nov. Likewise, 30 percent of people said they intend to purchase an iPhone, when asked in December, slipping from 34 percent in September.

I’ve spent a week or so playing around with the beta release of Picasa for Mac, and here are some thoughts.

• – It’s FAST. It does a superb job of pulling in your iPhoto collection in no time at all. Scrolling through it all is much faster than similar scrolling in iPhoto itself.

• – It’s considerate. It makes a point of co-existing with iPhoto, and asks nicely for your permission before making a copy of an image that’s being edited. As a consequence, it means people can try Picasa out without worrying about damage to their iPhoto database.

• – It finds your photos without fuss. Start it up, and it pokes around in all the usual places (and any other places you instruct it to poke in), looking for new pictures. These then get neatly added to the archive.

• – It does things my mum will love. The collages, the integration with Picasa Web Albums – these are features I have little interest in myself, but my mum (who has never got on well with iPhoto) will love them.

• – I like the the color searches (as shown in the photo above). Ask it to find “red” stuff and it will. Great for collages, photo books, or artistic projects.

Naturally, as with any beta, there are going to be some teething problems. One bug I’ve noticed is that right-clicking on an image and selecting “Move to (named) album” doesn’t work. And Picasa does seem to take a loooooong time to look through the images already on the camera, and decide if they are duplicates or not. But it does get there in the end.

Beta status or not, Picasa offers a decent alternative for photo management for people who don’t want to spend the kind of money required for Aperture or Lightroom.

Apple products are a natural for high falutin’ teen drama “Gossip Girl,” where just about everything the upper East Siders use has a recognizable brand name.

Gossip Girl, however, is sponsored by Verizon. To keep them happy, producers artfully block the Apple logos from getting into shots, but as a result Apple’s presence is almost more consipicous than it would be otherwise. The shot on the left reminds me of the trick directors use to hide pregnant actesses by placing plants and furniture to hit just mid-tummy.

A nice slide show non-Apple Apple product placement on Gossip Girl at Geek Sugar settles an ongoing argument I’ve been having with a friend over whether Dan’s laptop is a Mac or not…

Photos courtesy of The CW

Funnyman Jim Carrey keeps his love alive with wife, former playmate and comedian Jenny McCarthy, by dancing for her on iChat.

McCarthy tells OK magazine (with much enthusiasm!)  that she and her Yes Man text and use iChat to keep in touch while he’s on the set.

Jenny says she and Jim also use a web cam from time to time.

“I haven’t done any dancing, but I make him do that!” she says. “It’s nice! With the iChat, we’re always afraid that there’s a third party watching! We’re a little bit careful, but it’s a great way to have that face connection!”

She also confesses that between the two of them there’s not much ha ha-ing around the house. Somehow I find that hard to believe, especially if he’s shaking his groove thing for her regularly.

Via OK

Mac Tower from Sait Alanyali on Vimeo.

So here’s another fantasy Mac design from Sait Alanyli, the guy who did the [L-shaped Mac mini](https://cultofmac.com/l-shaped-mac-mini-might-be-shape-of-things-to-come/5523) concept that we featured here back in December.

This is the Mac Tower, and I have to confess there are some things about it that I find rather appealing. The ideas of a pop-up casing and a pop-up remote are very cute, and the thought of putting a battery inside with enough juice to power a Time Machine backup in case of sudden mains power loss is, well, one of those things you wonder no-one has done before.

Image via Flickr, used with permission

Steve Jobs is in a no-win situation right now. Either he’s healthy and he keeps coming to work every day and the question on everyone’s mind remains, “is Steve really healthy?” or, he’s not healthy and he takes some time to go get better, and the question on everyone’s mind remains, “how long is Steve going to live?” In either case, Apple is deprived of the singular focus of its driving force; in either case no one stops wondering about his health.

Many hope beyond hope that Jobs will regain his health and his drive and his focus, that he will return to Apple this summer, or sometime, and lead the company to many more years of innovating and producing products that “put a ding in the universe.”

Some believe his decision Wednesday to absent himself from the day-to-day operations at Apple signals the beginning of the end, that he is taking time to spend with his family and to prepare for his inevitable death coming sooner rather than later. And many wish him all the peace and comfort he can find in the love of those closest to him if such should indeed be the case.

What’s certain is there will be oceans of ink poured into writing about Steve Jobs and the unique place he has made for himself in his life and times. Whether he dies tomorrow or lives another twenty, thirty, fifty years, he has assured for himself a legacy of renown unlike anyone of his generation.

He’s been called a tyrant and a diva, a rock star and a king – and such superlatives are not out of proportion to the impact he has made on the way people live, not only in contemporary times, but on the way people will live long after he is gone.

I saw on Wednesday a piece about Jobs, written by music industry analyst Bob Lefsetz, who laments his feeling Jobs’ demise is imminent, saying his death “will be like the loss of Lennon. We will feel collectively that we’ve lost something that can’t be replaced.” And I have no doubt many will feel that way.

But the fact is, music didn’t die with the passing of John Lennon, as sad and incomprehensible as his death was, and as big and unfixable a hole as there seemed to be in his absence. His work lives on, for one thing, but also his example and his influence continue to inspire songwriters and musicians a generation later. The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus, ironically, had a prominent place just a week ago at Macworld, where Jobs’ presence was so sorely missed.

The day Steve Jobs dies may seem, as Lefsetz wrote, “like one of those great teen songs, where the lover dies and the singer just can’t move on.” But, like Lennon, his work will also live on. His example and his influence will continue to inspire people in many walks of life, I daresay, for generations to come. And that is something to be happy about.

Back in December, Gizmodo blogger Jason Chen put up an entertaining spoof of the iconic children’s book series Choose Your Own Adventure, in which the game is to pick Apple’s next CEO.

Perhaps you saw it. Even if you did, my guess is that you didn’t think it was quite as poignant then as it seems today. Chen probably didn’t think, either, his post might enjoy the second life it’s getting out of Jobs’ announcement Wednesday that he’ll take a leave of absence from day-to-day Apple affairs until June.

It is clever, and it’s fun, and everyone can use a little adventure now and then.

Via Gizmodo

Photo: James Merithew/Wired.com

While I was researching Inside Steve’s Brain, I read everything I could lay my hands on about Steve Jobs, including just about every book and magazine article published in the last couple of decades. One of the most striking things was how many times Jobs mentioned death as the driving force in his life.

Over and over Jobs said he was driven to make an impact before his time ran out.

It was such a recurrent theme, I thought of devoting an entire chapter to the subject in the book. Jobs had an obsession with death to rival Emily Dickinson’s.

Even in his twenties, Jobs obsessed about death. He told former Apple CEO John Sculley he was convinced he would live a very short life and urgently needed to have an impact before he died. Sculley thought this was why he was so driven and ambitious, according to Sculley’s autobiography. Of course, Jobs lived much longer than he suspected.

Best known perhaps, are Jobs comments during his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life,” he said. “Because almost everything all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

It’s comments like this that makes me pessimistic about today’s news that Jobs is stepping aside, even if he claims it is only temporary.

For the last four decades, since Jobs cofounded Apple in his bedroom, he’s worked like a horse — rising early, taking short vacations, avoiding parties and sacrificing holidays to prepare for Macworld.

Work and family — that’s all he does.

I think he’s now focusing on his family.

I hope it’s not the case, but I suspect Jobs will not return to Apple.

Today’s announcement makes me think he’s focusing on “what’s truly important” — his family.

The ad targeting algorithm they use over at the Washington Post has either got a sick sense of humor baked-in, or perhaps the instance of the ad running with the story above is a stone cold coincidence. Either way, it’s a chance to seek levity in a bit of a heavy moment for the Apple community.

Godspeed, Mr. Jobs.

Via TechCrunch

Now, I know what you’re thinking: There’s an Apple II conference? And they do it *every year*?

Yup. There is. And they do. And they have been for the last 19 years. They call it KansasFest.

Come this July (21st – 26th), it will be 20 years, and the organizers are celebrating the anniversary with some special speakers and, they hope, lots and lots and LOTS of Apple IIs and associated stuff.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced he will take a medical leave of absence until June in an email letter sent Wednesday to all Apple employees.

Citing continued distractions stemming from curiosity over his personal health that have affected him, his family and “everyone else at Apple,” Jobs admitted his health issues are “more complex than [he] originally thought” and has asked Tim Cook, Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations until Jobs’ intended return to the company in June.

Jobs said that he plans to remain involved in major strategic decisions while he is away and said the company’s board of directors fully supports this plan.

The full text of Jobs’ email is after the jump.