Cult of Mac

“Welcome to Macintosh” (subtitle: the documentary for the rest of us) features a mix of history and cult with interviews from ex-Apple employees, engineers and community members, shedding light on the company’s innovations, failures, cultural impact and what the future holds post co-founder Steve Jobs.

As we noted, it was announced out on DVD this fall, but the delay makes this a good bet for the Mac fanatic on your Christmas list. (Word to the wise: pre-order, since it won’t ship until mid-December).

On sale from the official site, the DVD, which costs about $20, offers three hours of extra content including extended interviews, a “making of” feature, trailers and photo journal.

The doc features a number of Macsperts including CoM’s Leander Kahney. In the trailer he speaks on design: “That’s what makes these products so beautiful, that level of comittment and dedication to the thing. To make it the best thing possible.”

Pretty things, we like.

Just in case you don’t have such a great photographic eye, or perhaps are not completely satisfied with the images produced by your iPhone’s distinctive optics, there is help available.

More than 30,000 people have downloaded French photographer Eric Lafforgue’s free iPhone app Hervé Péroteau. He released version 2.1 on Sunday with more than 800 pictures available for use as screensavers for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Lafforgue’s work has been published in prestegious magazines worldwide, including Geo, National Geographic, CNN Traveler, The Times, Stampa and UNESCO magazine. His app will fill 25MB of space on your device, but it automatically lets you know when there are photo updates available and includes professional tips from one of the world’s most successful freelance photographers.

Check out some of his images in the gallery below and be sure also to visit his stunning website.

All images © Eric Lafforgue

Tonight’s episode of The Simpsons had fun at the expense of Steve Jobs and Apple fans everywhere.

Via Edible Apple

Blogger Charles Teague has done some comprehensive analysis of emerging trends based on the AppStore’s first 5 months of business and there’s no denying Apple’s online distribution model has exploded out of the gate.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the proposition that the AppStore could be Apple’s most revolutionary development of all, which Teague’s research would appear to confirm in many respects.

The chart below shows the number of applications being released per day, with momentum clearly trending upward and sitting currently at more than 140 new apps per day. There are more than 9000 apps available on the AppStore, with the ratio of paid to free apps at about 7:2.

Stainless is a multi-purpose browser for OS X inspired (according to its developers) by Google Chrome. The early beta version (0.4) available for download works only with 10.5 (Leopard) and appears to be a fun side project for the engineers at Mesa Dynamics, who developed Stainless to leverage multi-processing technologies they developed for one of their other products, Hypercube.

Blogger Jackson Chung has taken Stainless for a spin and writes that it has potential. “It is a fair bit more stable, quicker and simpler to use [than other Mac browsers] – and that appeals to most people who are stuck with the productivity-driven mindset of Do more with less time.” He applauds Stainless’ simple UI and the fact that every browser tab runs under a separate process.

Unlike Safari, for instance, which runs tabs under a collective process, Stainless ‘feels’ lighter, according to Chung, and the whole surfing experience seems quicker and more responsive.

Google is working on a Mac version of Chrome and Media Dynamics gives the impression that Stainless may well be no more than a demonstration of the possibilities we could see when Chrome for the Mac is finally released. Until then, however, Stainless looks to be a taste of things to come.

Via Make Use Of

We came across some very groovy Mac and iGear sleeves and covers from a shop in Australia that could have just the thing for the Apple nut on your holiday gift list.

Foofshop offers ‘foofbag’ Apple laptop sleeves for the MacBook line of notebook computers and soft ‘foofpod’ iPod covers for use with iPod, Touch & iPhone.

Sampled in the gallery below are some of the colors and case designs, all of which are snug fitting and soft padded in sherpa fleece, protecting your stuff from scratches and things that go bump.

Both the bags and pods are slot loading, with an opening at one end; designed for easy removal with no silcone, neoprene, straps, velcro, buttons or clips.

All their products are handmade locally in Australia and the company is certified “carbon managed” by Carbon Planet; 100% of their greenhouse gas emissions have been offset since 2006.

The iPhone DevTeam took another brick out of Apple’s walled garden on Friday, successfully booting the Linux operating system on the iPhone, iPhone 3g and the original iPod Touch, according to a report at AppleInsider.

The “draft version” of the first alternative OS to run on Apple’s mobile devices includes the main Linux 2.6 kernel as well as “rudimentary graphics, serial, and other functional drivers that are enough to get a command line running when input is sent over the USB interface; the accelerometer, audio, networking and even the touchscreen have yet to receive any kind of software support,” according to the report.

Having led the way from the very beginning with efforts to jailbreak and unlock the iPhone, the Dev Team is working to enable Google’s equally Linux-based but more complete Android mobile operating system on the iPhone and is searching for programmers to help with the project.

Via AppleInsider

I followed a link to this CrankyGeeks url because it tempted me with information on “how to get out of your Sprint contract to buy an iPhone.”

I should have known.

The video is pretty good evidence that some FCC regs regarding broadcast standards are there for a reason. Of course, the Internet remains a bit of a final frontier and so you never know (or, as I mentioned, you should know) what you’re getting.

The best advice three guys sitting around drinking can come up with for getting out of your cell phone contract? Complain.

I’ll remember not to ping CGs with a real problem.

Via InternetInjustice

iPhone has a handy TV-Out functionality that lets you watch stored video on a TV monitor connected to the iPhone, and as demonstrated in the video above, can even push live camera input through the updated MediaPlayer framework included in version 2.2 of the iPhone SDK.

Developer/blogger Erica Sadun enlisted members of her family to assist in documenting this cool development over the Thanksgiving holiday, and credits fellow developers Drunkenbass and Greg “go2” Hartstein with helping her integrate user input through iPhone’s on-screen controls.

As Sadun mentions in her post at Ars Technica, this feature may useful in making the iPhone an active participant in the development of new video/phone hybrid apps and as a vehicle for delivering Keynote/PowerPoint-style presentations.

With iPhone, it just keeps getting better and better.

Via Ars Technica

The first Apple reseller is as good a reason as any to fly through Montreal’s Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport.

The recently-launched Boutique iStore, a petite 225 square feet, offers free Wi-Fi, an iPod bar as well as a few useful accessories, like the power cord you left in the office in a hurry to dash.

It’s the sister store to an Apple retailer in central Montreal, which gives some assurance that the operation isn’t fly-by-night — and that if you need to service on something you bought at the airport, you don’t have to trek back out there.

ifoAppleStore, a site dedicated to keeping an eye on Apple stores, said that Apple retail execs once mentioned the mini-store prototype might move into airports, but the concept was never expanded beyond the original nine stores.

With long layovers the norm, this is an idea whose time has come.

Via Softpedia

If a woman plays soft jazz when you come over but the top 25 played songs on her iPod are death metal, she’s not showing her true self.

The warning comes from psychologist Sam Gosling, author of “SNOOP: What Your Stuff Says About You.”

In this guide for men who want an excuse to pry, Gosling reckons her playlists will reveal whether you’ve hooked up with a potentially dangerous harpy and haven’t noticed yet.

His advice:
“Look for variety not quantity. Also note the differences between the music on her iPod’s top 25 most played list vs. the music she has playing when you visit. Jazz, classical or blues suggests openness; country, pop and soundtracks suggest she is more extraverted and possibly nicer.”

MacBook Air from Yurii Smitana on Vimeo.

Yurii loves his MacBook Air so much, he made an advertisement for it. I like the moment at 1:33, when he compares the thickness of an old Acer machine with the thinness of an Air.

Have you made any Apple product advertisements recently?

Come to think of it, have you made any advertisements for products you like recently? Even Acers? Just wondered.

Apple’s latest lstandalone Cinema Displays, the 24″ widescreen with LED backlight technology announced in August, have shipped and began arriving Wednesday for customers also fortunate enough to own Apple machines with mini-Display port connectors.

The new 21lb bright, shiny things work only with the new MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks and the Macbook Air, a limitation puzzled over by many in the wake of the August announcement, but now that they are here, object lust would seem to be kicking in predictably for many.

Ars Technica blogger Clint Ecker did an unboxing first impressions post on Wednesday, a few shots from which can be seen in the gallery below. Of note is the high-gloss reflectivity of the display glass and the fact that Mac OS X elegantly defers to the display’s iSight instead of the notebook’s. It also uses the USB audio on the display, disabling the output on the notebook until you plug into the notebook’s headphone jack. Ecker says the Cinema Display appears “slightly brighter” than the display on a similarly sized iMac.

Via Ars Technica

I wrote last week about the impending release of Job Compass, an iPhone app that utilizes the phone’s location-aware capability and Google Maps to deliver location-specific results to users’ job search queries. The app had its debut on the iTunes AppStore over the weekend and I’ve spent the past few days playing around with it.

I am happy to report Job Compass is a useful, intuitive and well-designed application that takes out of the equation some of the more tedious aspects of searching for new employment. In the current economic climate, where the unemployment rate in the US has risen in each of the past six months and now stands at a level higher than its most recent peak in 2003, Job Compass is a handy app indeed.

On launch the program asks permission to use your location as a base from which to perform a job search. After a few moments, a Google map pinned to your location appears and you’re invited to search for a job. Users can put in anything they want (now’s the time to think – what’s your dream job?) and choose to search for listings within a 5, 10, 25, 50 or 100 mile radius of their current location.

A recent search for writer/editor positions within 10 miles of my house returned five open positions, all of which I could then call up and read about, either in short digest or full description form. Users can choose to send themselves an email with a link to the job description, or open it in Safari and apply for the job right from the iPhone. Though, given the limitations of the iPhone’s virtual keyboard and the raft of text entries usually required in an online job application, sending an email link is almost always going to be your best option. (Note to Ed.: I’m not looking, that was just an example!)

Titus Blair, spokesman for Securicy Ventures, the app’s developer, told Cult of Mac, “we have partnered with most of the large jobs boards with the goal of being the #1 source for location based jobs searches,” and noted that Jobs Compass’s patent pending search protocol currently scans a database of over 2+ million listings, with more added daily.

Blair acknowledges “on Edge it can run pretty slow,” but says “we are working directly with Google on dramatically speeding this up for release 2.0.” Other enhancements in the works for coming updates include displaying maps and search results in landscape mode, the ability to input zip codes to search in other locations, as well as support for listings in the UK and Canada, and possibly other countries down the road.

Job Compass sells for $3.99 on the iTunes AppStore, which, if you’ve just lost your job or are interested in finding a new one, could prove to be a worthy investment.

Caption contest!

And this time: LOLspeak is allowed! Go crazy!

The winner – as judged by me at midnight GMT tomorrow (November 27th, which is also my birthday, yay) – will be sent a unique, once-in-a-lifetime PDF containing the word “Woof” in 27 different fonts.

Never say that Cult of Mac doesn’t offer you the most amazing prizes.

(Photo used under Creative Commons license, thanks to Arroz con Nori on Flickr).

So, erm, I’m not quite sure what to make of these.

Flickr user CoreForce posted these two, erm, stimulating images this week.

I know some people love their gadgets but the iPhone as a sex object? Not convinced about that. No.

(Photos iPhone tease and iPhone tease used under Creative Commons license, thanks to CoreForce.)

George Sawyer, who describes himself as “raised in a wood shop,” fashioned the Podbark case from flexible veneer adhered to wood-look paper with a protective screen sandwiched between. They wrap around the iPod with a finger joint, adding an authentic touch.

Sawyer started making them a few years ago, when the fifth gen iPod came out. Podbark currently fits those and the iPod classic 80gig, a comfort to those of us who have older models hanging around. They cost $15-$18, available in your choice of maple (pictured) or walnut.

iPhone (iBark?) and newer iPod models are in the works.

Podbark at Etsy

For MacAddict and MacUser editor Rik Myslewski has penned the second in a series of essays about Apple’s place in the world for The Register. This one looks at the company’s environmental and philanthropic activity.

Myslewski says that in both areas, Apple has only very recently showed signs of the kind of corporate responsibility commonly displayed publicly by its rivals and peers in the business.

The new green MacBooks only appeared after pressure by Greenpeace, which included public humiliation of the company in the charity’s 2006 Guide to Greener Electronics, where Apple was placed fourth from bottom. There are no records of charitable giving until the recent, sudden support for the Anti Proposition 8 movement in California.

If Apple has been giving more to charity, says Myslewski, it has been doing so under the utmost secrecy. Which leads him to believe that no such giving has taken place at all.

Which, Myslewski declares, is “shameful” for a company with so much cash in the bank. He gives the company an “F” rating for this particular part of the report card he’s writing.

What do you make of it all? Is Apple being treated harshly here, or is Myslewski making a good point?

Depending on your point of view, Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder” was either a bladder-threatening comedy, a hodge-podge of offensive stereotypes or just plain stupid.

After earning $100 mil at the US box office, it was recently released on DVD. The movie, about a ragtag bunch of actors forced to become real-life heroes, is a triumph of product placement. TiVo plays has a decisive role in the plot and everything from the newly-sexy cherry Chapstick and, yes, the iPod have cameos.

When Stiller’s character Tugg Speedman gets lost in the jungle, he soothes himself by watching Star Trek on his iPod, which was prominently placed in a giant gift basket in an earlier scene.

Not to spoil the plot, but after he’s attacked, he loses his cool and starts wearing his iPod as part of pseudo tribal fetish costume.

Guessing the iPod wouldn’t work with beads strung through it, but it’s a nice idea.

Low End Mac figures their time is now.

With the economy exuding the stench of death and government busy creating trillions of dollars worth of fictional capital to “bail out” some of the nation’s brand-name institutions, Low End Mac believes their philosophy of “use it up, wear it out, and then recycle it” could not be more timely.

“We are the kings of making our computers last, last, and last some more,” writes blogger John Hatchett in a great piece describing how he turned his old iMac into a digital jukebox. With a little bit of drive cloning and hooking the iMac up to his home stereo, he now listens to his iTunes library all over his house.

Via Low End Mac

Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end…

That whole Solitaire thing seems pretty quaint now, doesn’t it?

Via Edible Apple, via Married to the Sea

iFrogz, developer of accessories for iPod and iPhone announced the availability of its first line of customizable earphones Tuesday, claiming to offer over 200,000 unique possibilities among three new products.

I could think of any number of words to describe what may be going on in the marketing department at the company’s Logan, UT headquarters, but they can certainly be said to think different.

For starters, the product line is called EarPollution, with individual offerings named Hype, Fallout and Nerve Pipes. The whole campaign calls to mind some kind of industrial accident rather than a new wave of must-have items in the over-saturated earphone market. Then again, standing out from the crowd is a definite strategy.

And stand out the iFrogz headsets do, too. From the ultra-bling options available on the Nerve Pipes to the slightly more downbeat style of Fallout (both over-ear) and the low-profile, in-ear Hype, users can customize color and artwork for headbands, speakers, earpds, even hinges (on Nerve Pipes), giving them what iFrogz CEO Scott Huskinson calls “complete creative control to develop something truly unique and original.”

Styles retail from $19.99 for the Hype earbuds, and $34.99 for both the Fallout and Nerve Pipes. Despite the estimated 235,000 unique combinations currently available the company promises more customizable options will become available at a later date.

Ahead of what is likely the most nervously anticipated Holiday Season for retailers in more than a generation, Apple joined the Black Friday bandwagon Tuesday, announcing a “one-day-only holiday shopping event” for the day after Thanksgiving.

Subscribers to Apple’s Inside Apple News received an email Tuesday announcing the company’s “biggest shopping event of the year” and visitors to the Apple online store found promises of “dozens of great iPod, iPhone and Mac gift ideas” good for Friday only. No word yet on what Friday’s pricing is going to look like or what items in the catalog will be on sale.

Now that Apple holds such a prominent place in the retail trade the company should be expected to follow many of the industry’s marketing rituals, but it’s probably a safe bet they are a little less nervous in Cupertino than in, say, Minneapolis (home of Best Buy) or Bentonville, Ark. (world headquarters of Wal-Mart).

Apple could release an $800 netbook in 2009, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster told investors Tuesday. Munster is just the latest advising the Cupertino, Calif. computer maker to offer an inexpensive laptop.

Although CEO Steve Jobs has poo-poohed talk of a netbook, dismissing the growing trend as just a “nascent market,” Munster believes Apple has the perfect platform: the MacBook Air.

In a note to clients, the Apple watcher said Apple could release an 11-inch version of its MacBook Air notebook and sell the unit for between $800 to $1,000.

iPods provide welcome respite from annoying incidental music in stores, since retailers don’t understand that no one over 10 wants to buy anything while listening to Britney Spears.

There’s no bringing your own acoustic oasis in a bar for drinks, though.

Enter the WXYZ bar at hip Aloft hotel in Minneapolis, where customers can bring their iPods and blast personalized playlists over the venue stereo while they imbibe. Birthdays, anniversaries, 80s theme nights with office mates, the possibilities are endless.

Manager Amy Phillips said the plug-in-your-iPod idea was meant to provide “a connection to why they are there.”

The only catch? You do have to show them the playlist before hand. Which sort of rules out my favorite, though admittedly disturbing girl’s choir cover version of “I Touch Myself,” but I think it could be worked out. Or maybe I’ll have to sign up for this bring-your-own iPod night instead.

Photo credit: Metro Mix Twin Cities
Via Twin Cities Eater