Cult of Mac

• CG: Macworld UK reports ex-Microsoft Martiz has ousted Greene as VMware CEO. No reasons offered. Shares down 24%. https://tinyurl.com/5fejxd #
• CG: O2 claims UK iPhone orders reached 13,000 per second at one point. No wonder the servers crashed. Most Brits wanting iPhones = screwed. #
• CG: Isolator (which I reviewed: https://tinyurl.com/5oyyle) still proving v. useful. Great to flick on to temporarily focus on a single app. #
• CG: Looking at the Cult of Mac comment moderation queue and quietly sobbing. #
• PM: Just recorded iPhone 3G podcast with Arn from MacRumors and Matt from Gizmodo with Matt Sullivan for Pop. Mechanics. Look for it soon. #

The long-awaited opening of Apple’s AppStore may come on Thursday at noon Eastern Time to coincide with the launch of the iPhone 3G in New Zealand, according to a report published by Forbes.

Apple’s vehicle for distributing third-party applications developed for the iPhone could go live to accomodate purchasers of the new iPhone, who will be able to buy the phones beginning at Midnight local time in New Zealand. Forbes attributed the AppStore debut speculation to “three people who have been briefed on the matter,” but acknowledged Apple’s “usual veil of secrecy” makes “details about the size, scope or content of the store … consequently scarce.”

Former Forbes writer Daniel Lyons, uncovered last year by The New York Times as the man behind the blog The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, posted news today that his often hilarious and always outrageous character “Fake Steve Jobs” is sailing into the sunset.

Lyons wrote “Fake Steve is not really going away. He’s just taking on a new form.” But in a fashion true to form, the post left threads untied and destinations open to the imagination. Lyons begins work as a Newsweek columnist in the fall and is publishing a novel inspired by his work on the blog, according to a post today in the Times’ Technology blog.

Apple’s web services product, formerly known as .Mac, becomes MobileMe tonight, sometime between 6pm and 12am Pacific Time. A major overhaul to the $100 per year service will let subscribers manage email, calendar and contacts, pushing new data and changes automatically to desktop, laptop and mobile devices. Photo sharing features and disk space on Apple’s webservers let members store and share large files.

Apple produced a handy guided tour video and staff writer David Chartier posted a comprehensive piece on the details for Ars Technica today.

Three of the mainstream media’s most influential technology writers have published their initial reviews of the iPhone 3G and the consensus opinion seems to be “well, why not?”

Edward C. Baig gives the phone 3 3/4 stars out of 4 for USA Today and says “it’s cheaper, faster and a lot friendlier for business.”

Walter J. Mossberg writes for the Wall Street Journal that he found Apple’s upgrade “a more capable version of an already excellent device. And now that it’s open to third-party programs, the iPhone has a chance to become a true computing platform with wide versatility,” but notes the access to speed promised by AT&T’s 3G network seriously degrades the phone’s battery life.

The New York Times writer David Pogue has the least glowing of the three reviews and says that while there are notable, if small improvements in the 3G model, “unfortunately, most of the standard cellphone features that were missing from the first iPhone are still missing.” He cites lack of voice dialing, video recording, copy-and-paste, memory-card slot, Bluetooth stereo audio and phone-to-phone photo sending (MMS) capabilities as reasons to think twice about getting the phone.

All three reviewers praised Apple’s upgrades to the sound quality on the new model, an important consideration for those who might view its price in terms of the savings realized from not needing to purchase a new iPod, and always a welcome improvement to any portable multi-media device.

Some people have written to us to ask if we’re now clamping down on comments we ‘don’t like’, due to their comments not showing up on the site. The answer is ‘no’. The rather mundane explanation for the lack of comments on some articles is that no-one’s cleaned out the moderation queue over the past few days. Normal service will now be resumed. (Read: this poor sod is now off to rummage through several thousand comments in the spam queue… *sob*)

Of the more than 25,000 developers  who applied to Apple’s iPhone developers program, 4,000 were admitted, according to a story in Fortune. Apple set a July 7 deadline for those accepted developers to submit their applications for inclusion in the inaugural launch of the iPhone AppStore, expected to coincide with the worldwide debut of the iPhone 3G in two days.

We bring you now 12 interesting Apps to look for. Descriptions and screenshots after the jump.

• CG: Oh dear – looks like someone at Apple gave out an ADC password to a hijacker… because they asked for it. https://tinyurl.com/5ljeof #
• CG: Looks like rampant Brits swamped O2 and Carphone Warehouse re: iPhone 3G. No iPhones for you guys! Pip pip! https://tinyurl.com/5b9at2 #

So, we’re joining the micro-blogging revolution, or something. Cult of Mac is now twittering away at https://twitter.com/cultofmac and daily digests should show up if I’ve not been a total idiot with the Twitter plug-in I’ve been playing about with. The most recent five Tweets are also in this site’s sidebar.

Blogger Erica Sadun, writing for The Unofficial Apple Weblog, says there are several good reasons not to bother getting swept up in iPhone 3G fever.

Calling the phone “horribly priced,” especially in view of pricey carrier data plans that run upwards of $30 per month “to visit a few websites,” Sadun says everyone waiting in the rain right now outside the Apple Store in New York, the hordes of people in the UK who have already bought out O2’s supply of pre-orders, and the masses of customers worldwide who are expected to make Friday Apple’s biggest retail day ever – will be paying “the early adopter tax” for something that will be better and cheaper soon.

Acknowledging the upgrade to browsing speed promised by connectivity to the 3G network, Sadun believes unless “the speed issue [is] do-or-die for you, this is the upgrade to skip.”

Marko Karppinen, principal at MK&C, an eight-person software development studio in Helsinki, Finland, wrote a post on the company blog today claiming Apple responded to a phishing expedition by someone with a yahoo.com email address and turned over Karppinen’s Apple ID password, compromising his personal details, .Mac account information and Apple Store profile data.

Apple’s Developer Relations department did not respond to requests for comment.

Photo by JoLin via flickr

Apple retail outlets in Canada will not be selling the iPhone 3G when it makes its global debut on Friday, according to a report at AppleInsider. Speculation has been rampant that Apple Corporate is disgruntled by the PR fiasco created by Rogers Wireless service plan offerings for the new phones in Canada, which so far have attracted more than 50,000 signatures to a petition decrying the company’s pricing as predatory.

Rogers and its partner stores will be the only places to buy an iPhone 3G in Canada come Friday. Canadian Apple retail stores will, however, have demo units on hand for the July 11 launch.

Business must be pretty good at iFixit. The California-based Mac and iPod parts and upgrades site is sending tweeters and technicians to New Zealand to be the first people in the world to disassemble an iPhone 3G. iFixit reps plan to liveblog the disassembly of an iPhone 3G immediately after its worldwide debut at 12:01 AM NZST, July 11 (5:01 AM PST, July 10) and post live images and descriptions of the disassembly as it unfolds.

“Our technicians will also be analyzing the internals and posting component descriptions and design analysis,” said Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, in a press release issued by the company yesterday. “We’ll be posting internal photos as fast as we can take them.”

Boingo, the popular wireless hotspot provider, has released a lightweight application for Macbooks running OS X 10.4 and later. According to internal usage reports from airport Wi-Fi networks operated by Boingo,   Wi-Fi connections from MacBooks and PowerBooks have been increasing steadily. As of January 2008, nearly 20 percent of airport usage comes from Mac laptops, an increase of 30 percent since January 2007.

“With our GoBoingo! software for MacBooks, you are now just one click away from enjoying Wi-Fi service at hotspots around the world,” said Dawn Callahan, vice president, consumer marketing, Boingo Wireless.

The lightweight authentication tool automatically determines whether a hotspot belongs to a Boingo roaming partner and helps users log on to the Internet with their Boingo accounts in a single click. Less than 1 MB, the tool installs quickly and stays in the background until the Boingo member needs to log into a Wi-Fi network.

Joining AT&T stores nationwide for the iPhone 3G launch, Apple retail stores in the US will open for business at 8am on July 11, according to information posted on Apple’s website. In addition to AT&T’s 1800 retail locations,  American early birds will have nearly 200 Apple Stores available for their early morning shopping pleasure.

The stores began receiving 3G in-store displays today, according to Gizmodo, which also has a nice gallery of display photos. In-store demo units of the new phone are due in stores tomorrow and store employees have been instructed to download apps from the App Store on the morning of July 11th, according to a post at MacRumors.

J. Douglas Field, Segway CTO

We’re not sure if Steve Wozniak had a hand in the negotiations, but Apple has lured Doug Field, Segway’s chief technical officer, to join Jonathan Ivie’s design team as Vice President of Product Design, according to a post Friday on the SegwayChat forum.

As blogger Jason D. O’Grady notes, writing for ZD Net the move is curious, given Field’s background as an engineer and Segway’s not-so-glorious reputation for product design. Asked about his reaction to the Segway’s original design, Steve Jobs famously said, “I think it sucks.”

Here’s hoping Field gets a better grade from Jobs at his first Apple executive review.

In the first of a new series covering overviews of collections of Mac ‘stuff’, we present our favorites from the slew of apps vying for a place in your menu bar.

iStat menus 1.3

($free) islayer.com
There are loads of system monitors available for the Mac, but few hold a candle to the flexibility, good looks and usability of this beauty. With almost no effort, you can bung usage statistics for CPU, memory, disks and networks into the menu bar, along with fan, temperature and Bluetooth information. Drop-downs then provide access to extended data.

But perhaps the best trick iStat menus has up its sleeve is the Date & Time module, which offers many more settings than Mac OS X for displaying the date and time in the menu bar. It also offers a handy option for bunging a set of user-configurable world clocks in the drop-down, an implementation that manages to better the competition. The fact that iStat menus is free means you’re a bit strange if you don’t at least check it out.

All the times in the world, at your fingertips, with iStat Menus.

iTunesMenu 0.1

($free) programmerslife.co.cc
With the alumin(i)um Mac keyboards, Apple finally provided built-in system-wide iTunes controls, thereby placing dozens of iTunes controllers on to the ‘soon to be redundant’ list. However, when you’ve hundreds of CDs that have been ripped to iTunes, chances are you won’t know every track that pops up. iTunesMenu cunningly commendeers some menu-bar space for displaying the current track, and you can mess about with the preferences to include the artist and album name, too. Growl notification and scrolling support also exist, along with the option to define system-wide hot-keys for common iTunes controls. We’d love to also see iTunesMenu display the current track’s rating, but aside from that minor shortcoming it’s fab.

Check Off 3.8

($free) checkoffapp.com
With everyone and his dog rattling on about Get Things Done (GTD) processes and applications, it’s a wonder anyone actually does get anything done. By the time you’ve learned how to use applications and rigorously apply procedures, entire days have been sucked up by trying to be more efficient, which has resulted in many a Mac user being harshly beaten by the giant no-no stick of ironic doom. Check Off keeps things simple–it sits in the menu bar, and enables you to create a list of labelled things to do. Once you’ve done a ‘thing’ you can check it off (bonus points, Mr. Developer, for actually using a sensible name for your app!).

It’s simple, it does the job, and we like it. And Version 4’s due soon, so pop over to the developer’s website and offer your two cents regarding the feature set for the next major release.

ASM 2.2.7

($15) vercruesse.de
Time to show our age (or experience, depending on your point of view). Back in the days where OS X was just a glint in the mailman’s eye, there was no Dock. App-switching was instead done via a menu at the top-right of the screen. Old-hands often tearfully think back to those halcyon days, wishing nostalgia could replace the present day–at least when it comes to switching apps. ASM makes such dreams come true.

If you’re thinking “that’s great, granddad, but really what is the point, you old fart?”, we’ve some wise words for you, young whippersnapper. First, it’s irritating how the Dock’s apps can’t be ordered outside of launch order, unless they’re permanently housed. ASM enables you to list open apps in alphabetical order. Furthermore, ASM can dim hidden apps, and force single-application mode (auto-hiding everything else when you switch apps) or ‘Classic Window Mode’, which brings all of an application’s windows forward when one is clicked.

Simple WindowSets 2.0

($12.95) hamsoftengineering.com
If you regularly work on projects requiring a bunch of Finder windows, you’ll know how much of a pain it can be to set them up every time. Also, Finder isn’t the most stable of apps, and one quick crash is all it needs to take with it your careful planning. This latest release of Simple WindowSets does away with such problems, enabling you to define window sets based on currently open Finder windows and restore said sets from its menu-bar extra’s drop-down. Usefully, existing sets can be updated, and preferences settings enable you to append or replace on-screen Finder windows with a selected set. Simple WindowSets doesn’t currently play nice with smart folders, but that’s our only niggle and it’s therefore an essential download.

Isolator 3.3

($free) willmore.eu
A bit of a leftfield choice, this one, but it’s useful for the easily distracted, like your correspondent. Having grown increasingly used to WriteRoom’s ‘block out all distractions’ display option, it’s interesting to see another app provide similar focus for any application, and once installed, Isolator does just that. Click on the menu-bar icon and all background apps are hidden behind a user-definable level of blur and darkness. Another click and normality resumes. Options for system-wide hot-keys, Dock-hiding and the ‘clickability’ of dimmed windows and icons ensure this application is on the right side of the ‘configurable but simple’ line.

Isolator helps you focus on your work by displaying background apps in fuzz-o-vision.

So, that’s our half-dozen menu-bar wonders. What do you think of our selection? Do you have any favorites of your own that you think we should have covered? (We already hear Butler uses grinding some axes!) Let us know in the comments!

Photo via Fortune

My AT&T account tells me I’ll be eligible for a hardware upgrade on August 16th. I’ll probably wait at least until then to pick up a new iPhone 3G. And something tells me I won’t be disappointed.

Then again, I don’t have a sustainability agenda to push, as do a quintet of twenty-somethings calling themselves alternatively TheWhoFarm and Waiting for Apples, who began queuing up in front of the Apple Store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan on Friday. The group is going for the Guinness Book of World’s Records entry for “longest time waiting in line to buy something,” according to Fortune, and hopes to persuade the next President of the United States to transform the White House’s 17-acre lawn into an organic farm.

It’s not clear what effect the group’s affinity for Apple may have on the company’s efforts to gain acceptance with Enterprise users.

Apple has dropped the price on its MacBook Air with a solid state hard drive by $500. The new pricing on the computer our own Pete Mortenson called “a dream secondary computer for the rich and famous” is not likely to cause a hiring spurt by Apple’s retail division in advance of next week’s highly anticipated iPhone 3G debut.

Pete’s post yesterday, “Hello: Macs Are About to Get Interesting Again“, was pure Mortensen: articulate, insightful, well researched, and on the topic of Apple needing to change designs, dead wrong.

While the Macbook / Pro line as well as the MacPro’s are essentially indistinguishable from their predecessors, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a design philosophy that has powered BMW and Mercedes for a good long while. To that end, other than adding bling to satisfy a generation of new money rappers, Rolex has never fundamentally changed the design of the Datejust, Daytona, or Day/Date (aka President) watches.

The point: A classic is a classic.

Watch a television program. The majority of the time they show someone working on a laptop, it’s a Macbook Pro. Sure, it might have a Pear or an Orange on the back, and sometimes a nasty sticker of some sorts, but it’s identifiably a MBPro.

When a product’s design is raised in the cultural consciousness to be synonymous with the artifact it’s portraying (eg MBPro = Laptop), it becomes the archetype for that artifact. It means that whenever a consumer goes laptop shopping, their mental image for a laptop is of a Apple Macbook Pro, and any other purchasing decision they make will be an explicit compromise from the archetype.  This is not just a crazy theory of Leigh’s, Apple’s sales figures in the high-end laptop space prove this out.

Apple has attained this rarified place in the minds of consumers, with both the iPod and Macbook Pro lines. That is the very LAST time to fundamentally change a design.

Google has optimized Google Talk, its web-based instant messaging program, according to the company’s Mobile Blog website.

To send or receive instant messages an open instance of the phone’s Safari browser must be running. Switching to another browser window or application will change your IM status to “unavailable,” but you can select from a quicklist of the people you contact most, search your contacts, and manage multiple conversations. The company said it designed the iPhone optimization to closely resemble its desktop application.

Apple has issued a July 7 deadline for third-party developers hoping to have their applications considered for inclusion in the AppStore launch expected this month, according to iPhone Atlas.

Applications will continue to be accepted after the deadline but are not guaranteed to be included in the AppStore debut. The AppStore is expected to open with the release of 2.0 firmware to coincide with the launch of the iPhone 3G on July 11.

Update: For a well-reasoned rebuttal to at least my views on design, check out Leigh’s counter-post once you’re done reading here.

I’ve been alluding to this for a few months now, but let me repeat: The Mac is poised for innovation over the next few years on a scale that we haven’t experienced since the initial move to OS X in the previous decade. After five years of focusing on new categories like the iPod and the iPhone while gradually improving its Mac product line, the company has now freed up the resources to strengthen its core and highest-revenue business: Macs. And at the same time, new technologies are emerging to take the Mac to the next level. To read why, click through.

Winning awards for the product design is old hat for Jonathan Ive and his team in the Apple Design Group. The company’s Senior Vice President, Industrial Design has won every honor that a product designer can claim, and then some. But today, he won an award unlike any other. He was recognized for a design that drove the adoption of an obscure technology.

Ive was honored with the Personal Achievement Award by the Mobile Data Association, a UK group that recognizes “those UK companies and individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the uptake and success of mobile data over the last 12 months.”

The iPhone can be credited for many things — upsetting the existing mobile phone market, increasing demand for cool touchscreen interfaces, creating a new icon to be used as short-hand for innovation — but, as the MDA notes, its biggest accomplishment probably is in driving demand and adoption of mobile data plans. Data plans have been available for a very long time, but the appeal of the mobile web wasn’t obvious to most of us until we first got to try the stupendous Mobile Safari. By itself, the iPhone has made HTML browsers a near-standard feature for a modern smart phone.

And the industrial design is a big part of the success of Mobile Safari. Wiithout the finger-flicking scrolls and double-tapping zooms, the iPhone wouldn’t be what it is and mobile data wouldn’t be so hot. It’s nice that an organization that has been promoting mobile data for years recognizes that design’s contribution to the iPhone goes far beyond aesthetics and software. It was designed to make the mobile web accessible and appealing. And it succeeded wildly.

Via Ars Technica.